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.

A Secret Hidden Wood full of Bluebells

Last month I did a post "Following in the Footsteps of an Edwardian Lady Part 3: Olton Mill Pool", when I mentioned how much Olton and Solihull had changed since Edith Holden wrote her nature notes in 1905 and 1906.

Despite the vast amount of housing and other development in the area, when I looked at the current Ordance Survey map, pockets of woodland - hundreds of years old - still survive today.

Last Friday I decided to pay a visit to one of these woodland fragments - Coldlands Wood - which is shown (although not named) on the Ordance Survey map of the early twentieth century.

The Wood is almost entirely surrounded by houses with just an area of grassland along one edge. Initially, I found it hard to actually access the wood.

My first sighting of the wood from a church or community hall car park but there was no sign of a way in here!




Finally, I spotted an alleyway hidden between two houses which led into the wood.




Entering the wood - it was very muddy and I was glad I had my wellies on!




The biggest delight of all was the large amount of bluebells covering the woodland floor.





















It was lovely and quiet in this glade (looking like somewhere from "Lord of the Rings") - just birdsong for company.










"A fine and subtle spirit dwells
In every little flower,
Each one its own sweet feeling breathes
With more or less of power.
There is a silent eloquence
In every wild bluebell
That fills my softened heart with bliss
That words could never tell......."

Lines taken from "The Bluebell" by Anne Bronte



I found a few flowers of Yellow Archangel.



I had left my binoculars in the car but there were plenty of the more common species of birds around - wood pigeons, blackbirds, magpies, robins and blue and great tits.

I am not sure if Edith Holden of "Country Diary" fame ever visited this particular wood but it is only a few miles from where she lived in Olton so I like to think she would have walked here on her many travels in the area.

Coldlands Wood covers around 3.7 hectares and is semi-natural broad-leafed mixed woodland listed in the Ancient Woodlands Inventory. Oak, Birch and Beech are present with an understorey of Rowan, Hazel, Holly, Hawthorn and Elder. The trees vary in age but there are several veteran Birch and Beech Trees. The wood is hidden away just a mile or so from Solihull Town Centre.

Sorry that the photos are not that good - the light was really poor as it was starting to rain and even with an ISO of 800 I was only getting shutter speeds of 1/15th or 1/20th of a second.

Many thanks to Chris of Las Aventuras (please see link on the right) for giving me the idea for the post heading.