May 22nd – A long time since I featured Jockey Meadows here – the Site of Special Scientific Interest lying on wetland between Walsall Wood and Shelfield.
Usually the last bit of local landscape to green up, it’s looking splendidly fresh and verdant in the sun, possibly because the annual occupancy by a heard of meadow-maintaining cows haven’t appeared yet.
I notice someone’s come in here with a tractor recently though, which is interesting.
A beautiful and very important place!
April 6th – it’s not just about the blossom and attention seeking flowers, though.
So many new leaves, but is there any new leaf as crisp, beautiful, green and geometrically beautiful as the humble beech?
Go on, next time you pass one, take a close look. They’re wonders of verdant perfection.
March 21st – I noticed this lad hopping about the yard at work, looking for scraps of food and collecting nesting materials. I don’t see many sparrows at work, so I took a photo of him.
He likes this old cable drum so I’ve made it an impromptu feeding station – I only had a bit of stale fruitcake to put out today, but I’ll bring some seed and stuff tomorrow.
I like to see the birds in factory yards and around industrial estates, it’s a reminder that even in the most harsh of environments, nature is around us, doing it’s thing.
Just like Mr. Sparrow here.
December 19th – Near the Black Country Route in Moxley, the moss on this old hawthorn buss fascinates me. Although, to be fair, it could be lichen… like fellow hugely complex organisms fungi, mosses and lichens are fascinating, intricate and a world away from conventional plants.
The colours alone are stunning. I wonder why this particular bush?
November 30th – Another beautiful, frosty and glass-hard morning, and again Jockey Meadows captivated me.
This wetland, separating Shelfield from Walsall Wood for centuries is an essential drainage band for the area and a haven for wildlife, as well as being a notified Site of Special Scientific Interest.
And I think Jockey Meadows are at their most beautiful on mornings like this.
November 4th – The autumn colours were great this morning. When I started my ride to work, it was in semi darkness and drizzle; by the time I got there it was sunny, with clear blue skies.
Looking up in Darlaston’s Kings Hill Park through a canopy of yellow orange leaves, it felt good to be alive, to be there in the here and now.
It happened every year. I dread the onset of Autumn, and the wily old devil charms me to love in the end.
It was ever thus.
July 20th – People seem to think I’m negative about buddleia, but I’m not really. It’s a beautiful purple shrub that lights up late summer wonderfully, and it’s not known as the butterfly bush for nothing – the Lepidoptera love the huge flowerhead composed of tiny, individual blooms.
My problem with this plant – if it’s a problem at all – is that for me, it’s a harbinger of urban decay. It’s so successful in urban environments that it’ll grow well in a patch of soot in vertical brickwork. At this time of year, throughout the urban expanses of the UK you can see buddleia sprouting and flowering from derelict buildings, bridges and rail lines. Seemingly one of the first signs that nobody cares for a place anymore is that it starts flowering in purple at high summer.
You can’t blame the plant for that…
July 18th – I like this a lot. On Catshill Junction Bridge, just on the Walsall Wood side, there is a very healthy teasle plant growing from the brickwork.
It’s now tall, and in bloom. It looks fantastic, and slightly alien, as these plants always do.
A migrant from the wild sowing of nearby Clayhanger Common, we never would have seen these kind of plants here in my childhood. A wonderful, life-affirming thing.
July 9th – Also being reclaimed by nature and teeming with flowers is the Victorian brick lined spillway at Chasewater, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. The flowers and plants – including heathers, mustards, spotted orchids and others – are gradually overcoming the masonry and are beautiful. But this is also industrial history.
Should it be cleared, even though it’s unused, to preserve it? Or just left to decay, beautifully? I can’t decide.
October 3rd – A short recovery ride over to Clayhanger Marsh and Ryders Mere to keep the legs going and get some fresh air. The afternoon was very grey, and it’s on days like this I often used to see the gnarled old dog fox who hunted here. I think he must have passed away by now, but I thought of him as I surveyed the grey, still waters.
Me and that fox knew each other – we were familiars. As far as I was concerned, he was just another resident of the area, using the facilities available. To him, I was tolerable company as long as I kept silent, made no sudden movements and minded my own business.
Ah well, I daresay one or two of his extended family were watching me from the thickets nearby as I remembered him.
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