Tag: thicket

#365daysofbiking Another early arrival

March 28th – Also early this year along with most other stuff are the pieris flowers and bright read leaf tips.

This gorgeous ornamental shrub – sometimes called fetterbush – is grown a lot in gardens and in beds on industrial estates and parks for no other reason than well, it’s stunning.

This example was spotted in an otherwise anonymous scrub beside the cycleway near the Euston Way pub in Telford.

This is pretty much a fortnight earlier than it was last year, when I spotted the same shrub in Wednesbury.

This journal is moving home. Please find out more by clicking here.

from Tumblr https://ift.tt/2FEKh47
via IFTTT

#365daysofbiking Portal:

September 18th – Still surviving and developing is the fascinating green tunnel over the desire-path behind the canal overflow at Clayhanger. Now completely overgrown and just the right size for an adult to squeeze through, it’s a fascinating product of what I suspect is a regular dog walking route.

I hope this continues to be used – it’s such a lovely, happenstance thing

September 22nd – Further on from the flytipped mattress, my dark mood was lifted by a splash of colour as I winched myself up the Black Cock Bridge. Remarkably, the honeysuckle thicket growing there is still flowering, and in seeming good health.

Think about that. We’re 8 days off October, and the honeysuckle is still gorgeous.

Looking beyond the railings, I noted the field in from of the old farmhouse had been planted with young, deciduous saplings, which are coming along rather well. An excellent thing, and great colours right now, too.

May 12th – That cheeky squirrel. I was cruising around the canal looking for the swan family – still nowhere to be found – on my way home from work. I stopped at the hazel thicket on the bend by the Watermead Eastate to answer a call. All the time I felt I was being watched. 

It seems Nutkin wants me to move along now, and not make a fuss….

Yet another example of why I’ll never make a wildlife photographer…

October 1st – Talking of hedgerows, there’s a feature of them – and similar thickets – that not many notice. This hole is a sign of regular use as a thoroughfare, yet it’s too small for anything human or most things canine. It’s a fox path.

Foxes have a territory which they walk most nights – it encompasses their food sources, possible mates, sources of territorial conflict and so on. They are surprisingly regular in the routes they walk, and paths through undergrowth and scrub are well worn and used. Like desire paths created by humans, they often join two places by the shortest means, but also provide a quick route of escape, or shelter for hunting forays. Fox paths appear to be passed down from parent to cub, so that many are decades – if not centuries – old. As they’re established, other animals use them, like badgers.

This one leads off the canal towpath at Clayhanger above the Big House, down an almost vertical bank for 20 feet or so, and to into their garden. It’s been here for 20 years, to my knowledge.

Wonder if Reynard will be on the beat tonight?

August 12th – rounding the bend in the canal opposite Brownhills Canoe Centre, I noticed some debris on the towpath under the hazel thicket that’s grown so well there in recent years. Taking a closer look, I realised that the detritus was partially eaten hazel, or cob nuts, stripped by hungry squirrels. These are a fine, nutritious snack for our furry pals, and birds and foxes will Hoover up the remainder. I always wondered why I’d never seen these bushes fruit…