2012 Highlights - Part 4

I am quite amazed at how much I did go out during the first six months of the year. No wonder I had no time for birding I was too busy wandering around country churchyards and swanning round NT properties!

Although so much of Solihull has been developed since Edith Holden's time, it still contains many parks and fragments of ancient woodland. I visited Coldlands Wood very close to the town centre at bluebell time.

Coldlands Wood

Yellow Archangel and Bluebell

I returned to Bushwood as on my previous visit I had noticed what looked like masses of wild garlic plants and this time they were in flower.

Canal at Lowsonford

I discovered another country churchyard at Baddesley Clinton full of wild flowers

St Michael's Church

Buttercups, Bluebells and Germander Speedwell or "Bird's Eye" as my grandfather used to call it.

Cute lambs came to say "hallo"

St Michael's - I would have liked to see inside the church but couldn't find a way in! Have since discovered how to gain entry so I will return.

Stitchwort

Dandelion seedhead

Lady's Smock or Cuckoo Flower - used by Orange Tip butterflies for egg laying

Crosswort - emanating overpowering smell of honey

Speedwell

Red Campion

It may have been a poor year for moths and butterflies but wildflowers seemed to do really well this year.

I had another day out with my friend and this time we visited Calke Abbey - have never been there before and I shall have to go back. There is a very impressive drive up to the house through parkland and an avenue of lime trees. Sadly no photo but believe me it was beautiful. The 600 acres of parkland are a National Nature Reserve and Site of Special Scientific Interest and the 10th best site in Britain for invertebrates.

Click Beetle

Green Dock Beetle - thanks again Jan for the id help :)

The house looks as though it has come straight out of a Jane Austen novel but the National Trust has deliberately not restored or renovated the house, apart from essential repairs. It symbolises a country house left unchanged since its decline at the end of the nineteenth century when nothing was thrown away. During the twentieth century many great country houses and estates failed to survive.

It was raining most of the time we were there so we had a tour of the house and skulked in the restaurant and shop! There is so much we did not see - church, garden, deer enclosure and I would love to walk round the parkland and look for beetles and ancient trees.

Monkspath Meadow

There are some events in the year I try not to miss such as daffodils at Packwood and dahlias at Baddesley Clinton and the opening of Monkspath Meadow for one weekend a year is one such unmissable occasion. The meadow which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, is around 800 years old and contains around 150 species of grass and flower species. One of the highlights is the mass of Heath Spotted Orchids.

Meadow Buttercup

Thistle and Bumble Bee

Yellow Rattle

Great Burnet

Cuckoo spit

Lesser Stitchwort

Common Sorrel

Pignut

Heath Spotted Orchids

Another Tree Bumble Bee!

Finally, I returned to St Giles churchyard at Packwood - it was raining which made for some nice photos.

Fox and Cubs. I only identified this flower this year and once I had done so, it was like the Tree Bumble Bee, I started seeing it everywhere.

Wild and Cultivated Roses

Lady's Mantle

Sorry for so many posts in one day. I don't think I went out quite so much in the second part of the year! But I shall try and finish off the Highlights over the weekend.

Return to Bush Wood

In April when I wrote one of my "Following in the Footsteps of an Edwardian Lady" posts after visiting Bush Wood, I noted that in a few weeks it looked as though there would be masses of Ramsons (or Wild Garlic) in flower. Earlier this week I returned to the wood and sure enough the edges of the woodland were covered in a mass of star-like flowers scenting the air with the smell of garlic!













There were many wildflowers blooming in the hedgerows along the Warwickshire lanes.

Greater Stitchwort



Greater Stitchwort has a variety of "country" or common names: Greater Starwort, White Sunday, Thunderbolts,Snapjacks, Allbones, Mother Shimbles and Snick Needles. Many superstitions are attached to the picking of this plant - if you do so you might invoke a thunderstorm, or get bitten by an Adder or it could lead to an encounter with a pixie, fairy or elf! I never pick wildflowers these days but if you are tempted to pick a bunch of these don't say you haven't been warned!

Cow Parsley or Queen Anne's Lace is lining the hedgerows and canal-side banks.



Bluebell, Red Campion and Buttercups (as below) are flowering everywhere.



Also smelling of garlic, Garlic Mustard or Jack-by-the Hedge is flowering. Orange Tips and Green-veined White Butterflies lay their eggs on this plant.






As mentioned previously Edith Holden of Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady lived only a couple of miles away from this area at Gowan Bank, Kingswood, between 1890 and 1897 and, as she loved walking along the side of canals, I stopped off to take some photos of canals nearby.

Grand Union Canal at Rowington






This pub "Tom o' the Wood (the name relates to a seventeenth century corn mill) was one of my Dad's favourites.



And I would like one of these benches for my garden!



Stratford on Avon Canal at Lowsonford







There were plenty of lambs in the fields and I watched these gambolling around full of the joys of Spring. Sadly, no telephoto lens with me and they were really too far away for a decent photo.




As I was uploading photos for this post I noted, with horror, that I am currently using 1014 MB (99%) or my 1042 MB allowance! I shall have to see if there is a way to increase this otherwise I will have to start a new blog!

References:

Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden

Discovering The Folklore of Plants, Shire Classics, Margaret Baker

The Encyclopedia of British Wildflowers by John Akeroyd