August 25th – Although it was a grey, miserable morning, the canal near Bentley Bridge still looked awesome. It’s still very lush and green, in spite of the merciless mowing of the towpath. Today I noted snowberries were coming on to fruit, and the ragwort is still going well.
A little brightness is always nice on dull days. The kingfishers remain elusive…
August 7th – Still, don’t let the recent preoccupation with berries, harvest and fruit fool you; there are still plenty of wildflowers out there, and more to come. As I rode to work today, I spotted this hairy chap busy in the thistles, just doing his thing.
I love bees. Such gentle, busy creatures. They get a bad press sometimes, but they mean no harm and just want to get on with things undisturbed…
August 6th – Whilst it’s always a good year for something, it’s also always a bad year for something else. So far this year I’ve yet to see a single hazelnut, and horse chestnuts don’t seem terribly profuse. Acorns too, seem in short supply.
Likewise, cotoneasters – beloved of blackbirds and other berry-eaters for their high sugar content seem to be having a thing year. There are plenty of ripening fruits on the branches, but they’re thin and small, caused by the lack of heavy rain I guess.
They also seem to be ripening rather earlier than usual, too. Maybe they’ll fill out in time.
August 4th – No idea what’s happened in the last couple of days, but Victoria and Kings Hill parks in Darlaston are alive with fungi. I assume these are field mushrooms – I didn’t want to destroy them to check for sure. They’re a good 3-4 inches across and look healthy. So nice to see the fungi back, even if it does herald autumn…
August 2nd – Victoria Park, Darlaston, and a sign of the advancing seasons awakens me to the idea that summer is ebbing away: earthball fungus, looking pristine and fresh growing well in the grass.
Relatives of the better known puffball (indeed, some call the pigskin poison puffball), earthballs have no aperture to let the spores escape, they merely collapse when ripe and allow the wind to do the rest.
They are mildly toxic and can cause bad reactions, including a very bad stomach and allergy-like symptoms, such as rhinitis.
Fascinating fungus though.
July 21st – Darlaston’s Kings Hill Park. Cutting through on a morning errand. The place was deserted, but you’re never really quite alone.
I do hope she found what she was looking for…
July 20th – A very dull day, and I was caught in the rain twice. Still, the rain was warm and the atmosphere hot and humid so it was quite pleasant when I was;t riding into it.
I notice in the last few weeks the buddleia has burst into flower. Known as the butterfly busy, the copious purple blooms are a boon for lepidoptera and other bugs, but due to the remarkable tenacity of the shrub, I’ll always view it as a the harbinger of urban decay. Wherever there is dereliction, neglect or abandonment, Buddleia takes a hold, be it disused factories, rail lines or in issues in masonry. As it grows, it will pull brickwork apart and swamp all beneath it.
A remarkable plant.
July 13th – I headed to work on a sodden, rainy, wet Monday morning. It was a hard ride in humid conditions, when waterproofs leave you wetter from sweat than the rain they shield you from.
Pausing for a breather in Darlaston, I spotted the snowberry bushes in flower, spotted with raindrops. They captivated me.
July 8th – on my return, late afternoon, crossing the Black Country Route at Moxley; that enduring, wonderful view of the church, rising above the bedlam of traffic and surrounding urban life.
And yet, the trees, too. The Black Country is surprisingly green when you open your mind to it…
July 2nd – In Darlaston, a gentle precipitation; sweet-smelling, light, and coating all it touches. It’s pukh.
Pukh is a downy fluff produced by female poplar trees, not unlike the blossom fluff produced by sallows; I noticed today the Owen Street in Darlaston was coated with fuff. I’ve seen it before – Pitsford Street in the Jewellery Quarter used to be swept with clouds of the stuff in a good year, but rarely as uniform and snow-like as this.
It’ll be interesting to see if the rains washed it away.
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