Tag: Wetleyhay

March 18th – Talking of swans, here’s a flock of about 100 grazing on a field of young oilseed rape near Wetleyhay, between Whittington and Fradley, today.

This behaviour isn’t often witnessed by urban swan fans, but large congregations of these birds will often descend on open farmland to feed from young crops and can actually totally strip a field in no more than a few days.

This presents quite a challenge to farmers, who know public opinion isn’t on their side. In frequently targeted areas, farmers will often zig-zag tapes across vulnerable fields to make landing difficult for the swans.

Whilst we all love these large, beautiful birds, it can’t be very easy for farmers to lose their crops in this way…

April 25th – A 45 miler over to Walton on Trent and back through Lullington on what started as quite a bright afternoon but soon turned to rain. I got soaked, several times. It was cold. But the riding was quite fast, and nature really is trying to call on the warmer days – the oilseed rape is out, I found an isolated bluebell wood, birds and animals are busy, and even a few daffodils are hanging on. 

I was really interested to note at Wetleyhay north of Whittington that there are many, many solar panels being erected in the fields there to form solar farms. Great to see, and can only be a good thing for the environment and our energy security.