Tag: mystery

May 5th – This one has me a bit puzzled, and makes me realise how little I know about swan behaviour. This lone swan is on the decaying nest left in the disused basin by Cashmores works just off the Walsall Canal at Pleck. This nest successfully incubated and hatched at least four cygnets last season to a pair who I think are now nesting up at Bentley Bridge. The nest here is very secure from most predators – well out on the water, and humans can’t get there as it’s almost totally fenced off. 

The one thing it’s not secure from is herons, and I’m fairly sure a heron took a couple of newly hatched cygnets here last year, which may explain the pair not using this site again.

Occasionally, a single swan sits this rotting nest. I have no idea why. She – I’m assuming it’s a she – was there this evening, and seemed quite content, but there was no sign of a partner at all, and no sign of nest maintenance.

I do wonder what’s going on here.

April 22nd – An electrical mystery I really have no clue about. An overhead three-phase line runs across the Carterfield Lane junction at the bottom of Sandhills, Shire Oak, supplying farms and homes with electricity. Recently, secondary poles have been installed at seemingly random intervals, actually between the conductors, and a little higher then them, whit a protruding object from the top. 

The tops of the poles are sheathed in plastic, and they support nothing.

The only thing I can think is they’re lightning conductors. Does anyone know what they are for? Installing them between the lines like that must have been a very tricky job.

A real head-scratcher.

March 21 – The resurfacing of the canal towpath between Walsall town centre and Bentley Mill Way continues apace; I noted today that sections of the route have a newly-laid tarmac surface. It’s a nice job.

I still can’t get my head around this. I’m not ungrateful – I use this route regularly and it’ll be nice to ride – but this money would have been much better elsewhere on the local canal network – like the stretch from Longwood to Rushall Junction or from Goscote to Pelsall.

The Canal and River Trust are beyond my comprehension sometimes.

March 8th – There’s clearly a traffic survey going on along the feeder routes on Walsall Ring Road. A huge amount of monitoring equipment has been temporarily installed at junctions and crossings, some of it quite high tech.

In a journey between Lichfield Road and Ida Road I must have seen 20 different items of equipment – cameras, motion sensors etc.

This must be costing a lot of money. Wonder what’s going on?

January 26th – Jasper Carrot fans will know the familiar comedic cry of ‘I got this mole!’ but for the past week or two, a grass verge in Darlaston has had a fairly industrious chap digging beneath it, and he’s making me curious.

The verge is isolated by roads, a wall and a factory yard. Yet on this 100 square meter green oasis in a sea of hardstanding, a mole throws up fresh molehills every night. Nothing unusual in that, you might think; lots of places have moles. That’s very true – but how did he or she get here?

Do they travel over the surface to find new territories? Do predators perhaps carry them away, and the lucky ones make an escape? How did my worm-munching mate get onto this little patch of grass?

Suggestions welcome.

November 4th – In the afternoon, I again passed by these fascinating berries I recorded last week. Thanks to the genius of Susan Marie Ward, I can tell you that they’re actually a type of crab apple.

Yes, you read that right. A gosh-darned crab apple.

Read about this fascinating shrub here. Nature is amazing sometimes.

Thanks to Susan for that.

October 27th – These berries are profuse all along the cycle paths of Telford, and I don’t really know what they are. Glossier and rounder than cotoneaster but similarly pea-sized, they come in colours from deep red to light pink and yellow. The berry-heads are very dense, yet the birds don’t seem to bother with them.

Anybody know what they are?

August 27th – Returning to Brownhills that evening, I stopped to look at these shrubs growing by the Pier Street bridge on the towpath. I’ve been peripherally aware of them for ages, but not studied them before.

I have no idea what they are, and the blooms – now mostly over – seem almost prehistoric.

I’ve never noticed this before and am curious as to what it is. I’ve not seen it anywhere else locally and it appears to be thriving. Is it a garden escapee?