June 6th – Well, we had the large cocks last week, and now I found a pair of balls.
There I was, cycling up the Mellish Road (some way from the golf club and driving range) in the early morning, having picked up some components from Aldridge, when I spy an egg in the road.
It wasn’t an egg, it was a golf ball. A little further on, uphill, I found another.
A curious find.
June 2nd – A summer sentry watched my progress through their neighbourhood today. Sat watching the world go by in Walsall, this lovely, shiny coated black cat watched me carefully, making sure both I and the bike were in order. Satisfied I was just passing through, it posed for a photo while watching more interesting things back up the street.
June 1st – A grey morning crossing the still inexplicably closed Bentley Mill Way viewed from the aqueduct on the Walsall/Darlaston border. The roads has, over many months been lowered beneath the bridge to allow taller vehicles, and new signals added. In such a wet area, I hope the drainage pumps are capable and reliable, otherwise we could be in for fun.
The road has been complete for about a month now, and remained closed as some brickwork was pointed on the bridge, but now seems closed with no activity ongoing. Considering this whole show was due to open ‘Autumn 2015′, it’s all a bit of a puzzle.
May 31st – The season of the dog rose is upon us. You can keep your fancy hybrids, your blobs of colour on thorny sticks; give me the colour and scent of a wild rose any day of the week – bringing colour in an uncontrolled riot to towpaths, hedgerows and edge lands all over.
These were just by the canal in Walsall near Bentley Bridge. A joy to the heart.
May 26th – One flower I forgot yesterday that really deserves attention is clover. It’s just coming into flower at the moment, as as I proved yesterday, is a very sadly overlooked component of the verges and meadows.
At the moment, I’m mainly seeing purple ones, and their colour is lovely and bright, and the leaves are beautiful too, especially after rain.
We shouldn’t overlook even the humblest of flowers. They’re only trying to grab our attention, after all.
May 25th – As we advance to late spring and early summer, some of my favourite flowers are emerging now; birds foot trefoil ‘egg and bacon’, buttercups, elderflowers and ox-eye daisies all brighten the verges, hedgerows and edge lands of my commute.
Such lovely flowers. How I love this busy, colourful time of year.
May 24 – I ‘m convinced that whatever gave rise to moorhens and coots existing had the plans backwards. Baby coots – featured here last week – look, as Phil Griffin put it ‘Like badly knitted moorhens’ – and he’s right. On the other hand, apart from the remarkable feet, these moorhen chicks could easily thought to be coots.
The antics of both are hugely comical, however. So nice to see.
May 23 – I get a bit tired sometimes of defending Brownhills, Walsall and the Black Country. People call all three dirty, unpleasant, polluted, ugly.
All these animals were seen on my journey to and from work today. There can’t be many urban situations where you pass deer and herons on a Monday morning, can there?
I particularly liked the cygnet preening, just like it’s mum.
I love this place.
May19th – I passed along the canal at Bentley Mill Way later than usual, and noted that the swan brood here had hatched. I say brood, but I’m not sure what the singular of brood actually is; momma swan clearly only laid one egg this year, the remnants of which are all I can see in the nest.
I noted the parents travelling down the canal with their cygnet between them, proud attentive parents. I also noticed an interested heron; lets hope he decided not to run the gauntlet of the angry swan couple.
This pair do seem to have small clutches. I hope little one survives.
May 11th – On the Walsall Canal, despite the grim weather, life was continuing as normal. There are coot chicks in abundance, and I’ve been savouring the excellent description of them by Phil Griffin as ‘looking like badly knitted moorhens’ – they certainly are odd little things.
There was blossom aplenty from lilac and ornamental cherry, and the heron paused in it’s preening to look crossly at me, as if I’d broken it’s train of thought.
All of this in a 50 metre stretch of canal in the centre of urban Walsall.
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