Tag: SSSI

#365daysofbiking In the meadow

May 14th – Spring generally comes late to Jockey Meadow, the site of special scientific interest between Walsall Wood and Shelfield.

This year however, it’s looking very green and lush in the water meadows and farmed fields either side of Green Lane.

You wouldn’t think you were surrounded by heavy industry and urban development here, just peace, quiet and birdsong.

A lovely, under-appreciated bit of local greenery.

Wonder if the coos will be here this year?

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#365daysofbiking Coo, gosh:

September 6th – I don’t know where they’ve been hiding, and they weren’t telling, but I was greeted at the gate to the water meadow in Green Lane by a nearly full compliment of coos, which numbered 9 I think (one remained stubbornly eating a bush some way off).

These lads, here to maintain Jockey Meadows by eating everything they can and churning up the damp soil will be here a week or two and are even tempered, healthy looking bullocks.

Nosey in the way only cattle can be, they came to investigate me but didn’t come too close.

A lovely sight.

#365daysofbiking Ah, there you are:

September 3rd – I finally spotted them – 2 coos way off in the scrub of Jockey Meadows, Walsall Wood.

These young bulls are released to graze this Site of Special Scientific Interest periodically to maintain the meadow by eating the fast growing species and giving the slower, lower plants a chance. Their hooves chew up the soft ground and encourage new growth, and there is of course the fertilising power of the cowpat love they spread with abandon.

So far, I can see just two, far off in the tall grass and reeds. I look forward to meeting them at the gate soon.

July 18th – Looking less green, but still beautiful, the farmland opposite Jockey Meadows, Walsall Wood has a beautiful colour at the moment. The meadows themselves have so far this year been untouched by cattle for the first time in a good few years, so the water meadow has tall grass and the scrub is clearly taking over, but here on the farmland, things seem a bit more ordered, but the marshy patch closest to the camera is still largely fallow.

The season’s jacket is gradually and steadily turning colour. Whilst it’s beautiful, it’s a bit sad seeing such a great season pass.

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!

July 5th – Coppice Woods, or to give this small copse it’s proper name, Goblins Pit Wood is what I believe to be the last remnant of the holly and oak woodlands that used to cover our area before the industrial revolution. Quite why it survived, I don’t know, but now part of the Jockey Meadows SSSI, the future of this woodland seems secure.

There’s still plenty of oak and holly, but other deciduous trees make for a variety of habitats for bats, mustelids, rodents, birds and insects.

On this sunny evening ride home, Coppice Woods were a peaceful, sleepy sanctuary from the rush-hour traffic on Green Lane.

January 6th – An early, grey commute was brightened by something I’d never seen before, a heron in Jockey Meadows. A fair way from the canal or Ryders Mere, it must either have been resting or hunting in the water meadows here.

The photos are awful, and very long distance, but I’ve never seen a heron here before.

It set me up for the day.

May 13th – Greetings from the West Midlands conurbation. 

This is post industrial land, between Shelfield and Walsall Wood; scarred by mining, marl extraction and years of poor drainage. Now partially a site of Special Scientific Interest, the land here is a beautiful green lung.

The Oilseed Rape on the corner by Grange Farm is nearly over now, but the may is out, and with cowparsley bobbing in the wind, one might be somewhere more rural. 

Cows have been let loose on Jockey Meadows again – I assume it’s part of the rotational heathland management here. They seem in their element in this boggy watermeadow. 

Wen did this space – in my youth a hinterland of desertion and scrubby, polluted bog – get so beautiful?

June 11th – It was spotting with rain as I came back through Walsall Wood. I stopped off to take in Jockey Meadows, between Shelfield and Walsall Wood. These fields, now a notified Site of Special Scientific Interest, are classic, marshy, undisturbed wildflower meadows. It was peaceful, and bullfinches and jays went about their business. I must come back to explore these on a sunnier day. 

June 23rd – I notice signs have gone up proclaiming Coppice Wood a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation, and quite rightly so. I suspect it’s one of the oldest patch of holly and oak woodlands in the local area. It’s certainly an old wood, and is shown on the oldest maps of the area I have, which refer to it by the rather better name of Goblin’s Wood.

This sits alongside the fact that Jockey Meadows is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, or SSSI, as is most of Chasewater. This recognises the significance of the ecology of the area and affords it additional legal protection.