Tag: Common

October 24th – With the immediate rush easing off a little, I took a diversion on the way to work to check out the earthstar fungi a little further up the industrial estate I discovered accidentally a few weeks ago. 

They’re doing wonderfully and there were some perfect specimens.

I love how they look like they’ve been made out of clay or plasticine. Their shapes almost look inorganic.

fungi are fascinating. I wonder if we’ll get any in the usual spot on Clayhanger Common this year? They normally come later, around December…

October 21st – A blustery, showery day, so I restricted myself to a short ride around the patch, washing through the leaves shaken free by the storm. At the new pond at Clayhanger, I noticed a healthy, beautiful holly bush with a dense crop of berries growing in the marsh at the back of the pool. That’s a sign Christmas is coming, for sure.

Autumn has been strange this year. It’s like we fell out of summer with a bump and kept bouncing off winter with no transition…

September 24th – Nice to see the refurbished Fullelove Memorial Shelter back in public use at the Parade in Brownhills. Often mistaken for a bus stop, the shelter was erected by Brownhills Urban District Council for the old folks in memory of George Fullelove, the great chorister and choirmaster of Brownhills.

This hexagonal, elegant brick structure has provided a place to shoot the breeze, hide from the rain, or enjoy an illicit fag for generations, yet I bet few know why it’s actually there.

A lovely thing, well restored and congratulations to the Brownhills Local Committee and the Friends of Brownhills Common who achieved it.

September 20th – A good fungal find near conifers by the canal in Clayhanger – Sticky Bun fungus, sometimes known as Sticky Jack. When damp, this large toadstool looks slimy and unpleasant, but as a boletus it’s edible (but to avoid a bad tummy remove the slime layer before preparation), and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it here before.

Were it not sprouting from formerly contaminated land I’d certainly be picking a few for a fry up…

August 14th – Sorry, after this I promise no morale oak wasp galls!

This is an artichoke oak wasp gall, created the same way as all the others, this wasp selects acorn buds, which are corrupted into these neat little artichoke shaped growths to house it’s larvae.

These examples spotted on Clayhanger Common.

That’s it now, I think we’ve collected the set…

August 13th – More oak wasp galls, which I’ve gone all out to find this year for no other reason than they fascinate me.

On a small sapling by the canalside track at Hopwas, hundreds of thousands of almost annular, ring-like growths on the leaves, looking maybe like fungus or some odd egg. These are the delightfully named common spangle gall for the flat ones, and silk button galls for the rounder, more sharply defined ones.

These are all created by the same mechanism – a small wasp injects an egg into the leaf, and a chemical coating the egg disrupts the plant DNA to grow the gall, which leaves a light patch on the upper surface of the leaf where nutrients have been leeched away by the larva growing underneath.

I’m not sure why galls like this captivate me so much but they are absolutely fascinating.

July 17th – Time for my annual botanically subversive mission: spreading the cowslip love.

After the usual delightful display in the spring, my favourite flowers have finally started to seed. I carefully collect the seed heads in a bag, shaking the seeds into it. 

When I have plenty, I carefully spread the seeds on hedgerows, verges and anywhere that would benefit from springtime cowslips.

Guerilla seeding. Do something pretty while you can. 

July 16th – The dying light intensified it’s drama as I headed back wearily to Brownhills. The Parade is always a treat but with so many mature deciduous trees there now, a low sun is a real treat.

It’s not hard to see the beauty in this place. You just need to be receptive to it and find the right light.

June 22nd – Two poor pictures, but ones I just had to share, as they’re of birds I don’t see very often locally: Jays. There was a pair of these intelligent, resourceful corvids bickering over something and chasing each other from tree to tree. I assume one had interloped on the other’s patch, but whatever was happening, there was a lot of squawking, warning chiming and wing flapping.

These are beautiful, colourful birds and they were battling in the trees near the Pier Street Bridge by Clayhanger Common in Brownhills.

A rare delight and I’m sad I didn’t get better pictures.