February 26th – One thing I have noticed this year is that the crazy mild and early spring seems to have really benefited the catkins. They are lush and large this year, which seems good.
Here on the canal at Walsall Wood they’re the largest such crop I’ve ever seen.
February 21st – Today, I saw an old familiar, I thought was lost – the white domestic goose from Chasewater with the bump it’s head. Originally part of a cohort of six kept as guards for the boatyard at Ogley Junction, they were cast into the wild when the yard closed. Living on the canal by the Chemical for a few years, two were lost, presumably to the local fox’s belly. When the Chemical was redeveloped, the geese moved to the main lake at Chasewater, where they lived seemingly contentedly amongst the Canada geese and swans.
One bird was lost to the cold in 2013, and another disappeared last year; for a couple of months now I’ve only seen the one, and assumed this bird was lost, but today I saw it preening by the waterspouts club.
The flock would be probably over ten years old now, and it shows in their eyes – these are venerable birds. Truculent, permanently cross and hostile to anything that didn’t give them food, they were hard to like. But I’ve always loved them. Such pure, white plumage, always tidy birds who knew their mind.
I hope they see another summer, and feel the warm sun on their backs once more.
January 26th – Jasper Carrot fans will know the familiar comedic cry of ‘I got this mole!’ but for the past week or two, a grass verge in Darlaston has had a fairly industrious chap digging beneath it, and he’s making me curious.
The verge is isolated by roads, a wall and a factory yard. Yet on this 100 square meter green oasis in a sea of hardstanding, a mole throws up fresh molehills every night. Nothing unusual in that, you might think; lots of places have moles. That’s very true – but how did he or she get here?
Do they travel over the surface to find new territories? Do predators perhaps carry them away, and the lucky ones make an escape? How did my worm-munching mate get onto this little patch of grass?
Suggestions welcome.
January 24th – An awful image, snatched at dusk through a hedgerow at Newtown, Brownhills: four red deer females loafing and grazing in the field between the canal and Chase Road.
After years of seeing them around Brownhills, I’m still not over the frisson of noticing them: they feel so out of place and exotic, even though this is their home.
A lovely thing on an otherwise dull day.
December 28th – I’ve heard of this before, but never seen it. In the Three Spires precinct in Lichfield, as dusk fell, a barely-noticed commotion of bird fuss broke the gentle susurration of continued consumerism below. One single tree out of several, decorated in Christmas lights in a fashion that must have taken someone bloody ages, what must have been a hundred or more pied wagtails.
I’d heard they flock. These nippy, twitchy little birds live off bugs generally, and are a common sight in car parks and factory yards and other areas of open hardstanding where they can hunt unhindered, but usually in ones and twos.
I don’t know if they came for the berries, or just a party. Certainly, nothing was bothering them. A remarkable sight I was lucky indeed to see.
November 23rd – It was a bitterly cold morning – or at least, it seemed like one after the unseasonal warmth of recent weeks. Cycling down to Darlaston on the canal, I was accosted by some familiar hoodlums.
This is the only family group of this year’s swans I think are sill together, most having joined larger local flocks. They looked in rude health though, and gave no answer when I asked if they were cold.
They soon lost interest when they realised I had no food…
November 8th – My sombre mood was lifted on the way home by 13 red deer spotted loafing near Chasewater. The young stag seemed to have been fitted with antlers tuned for both DAB and FM, but he was a proud fellow. Sadly, the awful light prevented better photos but this healthy, relaxed herd was beautiful to see.
Just what I needed.
November 2nd – A hard commute to and from work, but I wasn’t the only local whose activities were restricted due to fog.
This buzzard, hunting curtailed by the poor conditions, was loafing off the Mellish Road in Walsall.
He looked well fed.
October 25th – This momma deer and her two calves – a yearling and this year’s – were happily browsing on the common when I spotted them. Nervous, all but the little one hid for a while, then braved my camera.
Lovely creatures, in good health, by the looks. I loved the colours in the youngest’s coat.
October 15th – In a factory yard in the darkest Black Country, a temporarily misplaced young hunter peers hopefully from a bund wall at standing water. There might be the odd frog, I guess, but no fish in there, sir.
He watched for a while, then, as if called, suddenly flew away. He seemed to know exactly where he was going.
This is why I adore the Black Country.
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