July 4th – I have no idea what this actually is but it’s rather gorgeous. Spotted on the cycle way to Telford Station, it’s tiny and pink, and could possibly be sticky flax but I’m really not sure.
Whatever it is it’s gorgeous and rather special.
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July 4th – One of the signs of a passing summer is the emergence of various fruits and berries, and their gentle ripening. This morning at Clayhnager, I spotted these rowan berries – beloved of wine and jam makers as well as songbirds – turning from green to a light orange.
Soon they will be a wonderful deep colour, and fall on pavements where they crackle and pop satisfyingly when walked or ridden upon.
The summer really is passing fast now.
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July 3rd – Ah, hello you guys.
The Watermead swan family – minus dad, as is so often the case these days – were grazing the algae with mum at Catshill Junction as I came home.
I can’t get over how fast these cygnets are growing!
Must be all the greens.
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July 3rd – As expected, someone has flailed the beautiful, tumbling honeysucklle on the southern flank of the Black Cock Bridge, as they do every year when it’s in bloom. it’s ad, but it’s their hedge, I guess. But I’ll never understand it.
Now, i’ll have to make do with the other honeysuckle growing hereabouts – and there’s a lot of it, to be fair: Another think now profuse that wasn’t really about much when I was a kid.
This example, mingling beautifully in a tangled, glorious mess of brambles, lupins, cow parsley and bindweed, is growing on the embankment above the big house at Clayhanger, just on the edge of the canal towpath.
And thankfully, I’ve never seen anyone trim this one…
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July 2nd – On the same industrial estate, a treat for the bees and bugs is blooming beautifully – cotoneaster, a stable of urban hedgerows and borders.
The tiny pink-red flowers are a bee magnet and every bush is alive with visiting insects, but not just that: These flowers turn into sugar-laden orange-red berries beloved of blackbirds and other songbirds in autumn, helping get the avian locals through winter.
Everywhere you look right now, nature is helping itself get along. It really is beautiful.
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July 1st – Spotted near Norton Canes, on the edge of a building site, a sign of the season’s advance: Hornbeam seeds growing and ripening in the evening sun.
These are lovely trees with beautiful leaves I used to mistake for beech, and the seeds are beautiful too, hanging in cascades from the branches.
Always worth looking out for.
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June 27th – The Watermead swan brood now are growing fast, and the chicks are getting quite a size, with them now in the lanky, scruffy stage of their development.
It’s more common now to see lone cygnets browsing and feeding away from the parent group and this busy forager was feeding on one side of Catshill Junction while his mum and 2 siblings were snoozing on the grass by the narrows on the Walsall Wood side.
With plenty of water greens to keep them healthy they’ll soon be adult-sized birds.
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June 26th – Weeks of commuting in rain and grim weather are taking their toll on my brakes. Thinking I’d be in for a decent spell, I replaced the brake discs and pads on this bike in early spring.
Now it’s the end of June and they’re groovier than a 1970s Parisian jazz club.
The bikes are suffering: Corrosion, road grime, grit. This weather is eating my bikes.
A bit of sun and dryness isn’t too much to ask, is it?
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June 26th – Sad to see the last of the orchids fading away now but it’s been a great year for them.
I think they like the rain, so the summer has been good for something, at least.
I love these gorgeous purple flowers – a real symbol of the cleanliness our canals now enjoy. Such a shame they’re so transient in nature.
Until next year, then…
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June 24th – When I left for work on a decent but grey Monday, I took to the canal with a heavy heart.
It wasn’t long though before something cheered me up – the Walsall Wood swan family, chirruping to each other as they begged for treats in Walsall Wood.
Such a cheerful, delightful family, always under the watchful eye of mum and dad.
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