Galleries

July 28th – There was not only a remarkable sunset, but a partial rainbow within it, so I shot out on the bike to catch it in what I thought would be the best place – from the canal overlooking Sandhilsl and Home Farm.

When I got there, I realised that I had a problem: The hedge was too high to get decent pictures. So I rode up the canal to the gap in the hedge, and crawled through. Walking the field of uncut wheat was wonderful, particularly so following the day’s showers, which made it a sensory delight.

How I adore that horse chestnut tree.

July 28th – The hazel hedge by the canal, between Silver Street pedestrian bridge and Coopers Bridge is heavy with nuts this year – clearly to the joy of the local squirrel population. Thankfully when I spotted these healthy specimens, they grey rodents hadn’t completely stripped the trees of their creamy bounty yet.

But they’re having a jolly good go, bless them.

Still can’t get into my head that w have fruiting hazels growing healthily on what used to be an open, festering refuse tip.

July 26th – The very hot weather seems to be coming to an end, timing almost perfectly with the end of the major session of the harvest. Locally now for a couple of weeks, the grumble and whine of fantastically large and complex harvesting machinery has been a continual backing track to rural life, and often I’ve ridden through clouds of wheat dust from this year’s crop being threshed in the harvester.

Not much spilled this year, which is interesting, the roads are usually thick with spilled grain, called ‘gleanings’ as traditionally workers and the poor were allowed to collect – glean – this harvest bounty and they’d feed it to their animals and fowl.

Interesting also to note the return of the rectangular bale. Well, they do stack better.

And with harvest and the end of the heatwave, the year gallops on…

July 26th – At Telford, the new footbridge at the station continues to take shape. Steel is being erected, steps and glazing are being added and lifts seem to be going in too. 

There are now five distinct building sites that make up this construction. Getting to the right one to start work – across a railway, a major dual carriageway and slip roads – can’t be much fun!

July 25th – These oak knopper galls actually took me by surprise a couple of days ago, but the photos I took weren’t great, so I revisited the saplings they’re growing on today.

I spotted them on a tree near Victoria Park in Darlaston and I don’t think there’s a single normally formed acorn on that tree at all, and yet several adjacent ones have no knoppers at all.

These mutations of normal acorns are of course caused by a tiny wasp that lays eggs in the acorn buds earlier in the year. A secretion the eggs are coated in causes the acorn bud to mutate and grow in a distorted form, forming a gall, with the wasp egg at the centre. 

The larva hatches, and eats it’s way out of the gall, which provides it enough nourishment to grow to maturity.

Insect galls like this don’t hurt the tree, but of course, do affect it’s fecundity.

Isn’t nature amazing?

July 24th – It seems early for blackberries to be ripening in such quantities right now, but they are. I think in reality we’re maybe only a week or two ahead of schedule, but it just seems wrong.

The foragers and animals won’t mind though – this juicy, black-red sugar laden fruit will sustain many a bird or rodent and make for many a decent pudding the the coming month or so.

Again, it seems like a good crop too.

July 24th – Also coming on to show well right now are the rosehips – the fruit of the rose flower, either the dog rose, or the feral scopes that dot the hedgerows, canal towpaths and footpaths of the area.

I love the variety of textures, colours and shapes.

They bring a second splash of welcome colour when the rose flowers  themselves have decayed for another year…

July 23rd – I ought to know what this plant is. But I don’t, and the guide books haven’t been helpful. It looks a bit like cow parsley, but isn’t: smaller, flatter flower heads and that curious ball formation which I can’t tell is a flowerhead opening or going to seed.

Anyone know? Loads of it in Darlaston at the moment.

July 21st – In a slow potter back through Walton, Croxall, Edingale, Darlaston and Whittington the sunset was gorgeous, make better by some really great cloud formations.

The Trooper at Wall always looks great at night, too.

Couldn’t help notice though that the darkness is now coming on earlier and earlier. Autumn will soon be tapping me on the shoulder…

July 21st – After rising the Barton Gate steam rally, I pottered over to Dunstall and road the track from Barton Gate up to the village. A lovely run, it gives the very best views of a really pretty, little known village on the hill above Barton under Needwood.

A lovely, mellow Saturday evening was really enjoyable – not pushing it, just ambling and stopping to smell the flowers. 

A great restorative for mind and spirit.