January 1st 2022 - The first Day of a New Year - Stourbridge Nostalgia

 

I look old as a selfie with Mum and Dad seeing me off from the door testifies. 65 and a half years old and yet still I am off with an overladen bike on yet another Biking Birder adventure. This will be my fourth whole year cycling – Birding BIGBY, Big Green Big Year, in the UK and my sixth overall. 

It is a warm Winter’s Day, too warm, the warmest ever recorded at 15.8C and it is dry with a little hazy sunshine as I leave Mum and Dad’s housing estate in North Worcestershire and push the bike to the main road. This bike is heavy!

    The aim of a BIGBY is to see as many bird species as possible without using any fossil-fuelled transport to get around. In the past I have beaten both the British and European BIGBY records, seeing 318 bird species in 2016 but as I used ferries to get to quite a fair number of islands, these records are tainted.

    This year I will NOT be using any ferries. Neither will I take a train to take a break and see my family, something I did in the past occasionally during the Biking Birder years 2010 and 2015. Mum will be 90 this year and I will cycle home for that major family event.

I will also cycle home from wherever I am at the end of February in order to participate in an event at Villa Park, the home of my favourite football team, Aston Villa, for Acorns Children’s Hospice.

 One of the most important aspects of my adventures is the support I give to charities. When I think of what it is that keeps me going day by day, through all weathers and obstacles, it is the fact that I am helping a charity by fundraising and that if I gave in, decided that it is too tough to keep going, then the each chosen charity would not receive the money. This year I am fundraising for Acorns Children’s Hospice in Birmingham and also doing the same for the RSPB. I won’t let them down because I know after having done whole year cycle around the UK events three times before, I know what is in stall. I know that I can get through anything and achieve my goals.

Acorns Children’s Hospice – https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/GaryPrescott2022 

RSPB – https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bikingbirdervii-2022 

    Donations and pledges keep me going and I love to see the amount of money each bird seen will raise rise day by day as more people make a pledge for a charity. I will donate 1p for every bird species you see Gary, or whatever amount per bird species. It mounts up and adds to the thrill of seeing birds. More about the hoped for pledges on a later date.

    So, I leave Mum and Dad after having seen seventeen birds from their garden; Nuthatch, Great Spotted Woodpecker, four Titmice species, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Coal and Long-tailed Tit, Jay, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Blackbird, Chaffinch and Goldfinch, Dunnock, Wood Pigeon, House Sparrow (1 – 17)and the bird that started the 2022 BIGBY list, a Robin, Britain’s National bird.

Nut

Nuthatch

Blackbird

    Onto the bike, it feels so good to be back in the saddle, I head north and take the narrow country lanes towards Stourbridge. I shout Happy New Year to everyone I pass and occasionally stop to have a chat. Coronavirus has isolated so many people over the last twenty two months and meeting people even if socially distanced, is a thrill.

    Jackdaws and Collared Doves are in the gardens of a lane in Romsley and then Redwings, (20) just a few of them fly over, all adding themselves to the bird list.

    I am stopped by two dog walkers, Jason and Katy of St Kenelm's Dog Club, who are just putting two large dogs into the back of their van and am promised a donation for the charity of their choice.

    Next a stop at Ufmoor Wood, a Woodland Trust nature reserve with a good car park and information boards. 

A young girl, four-year old Mia, out walking with Mum Nicky and Nanny & Pa, is fascinated by the crew on my overladen bike. I tell Mia the name of each and tell the whole family reason they are with me.

Albert the Albatross - represents the RSPB, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Bobette the Butterfly - is the beautiful logo of the superb Butterflies of Britain Business : https://www.butterfliesofbritain.com/

Sid the Rainforest Frog – might seem strange but this is to remind me of the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust. I bought him at Slimbridge, the amazing HQ
and visitor’s centre for the W&WT, over a decade ago now.

    Now you know! Actually when I left Lima debarking on Biking Birder IV, a Peruvian Green Birding adventure, I had eighteen cuddlies on the bike!

A Buzzard (21) circles overhead as I enjoy yet another natter, this time with Lily from nearby Hayley Green, originally from Quarry Bank so a proper YamYam, Black Country girl, now an older than me lady out for a country walk.

    Cycling on a few gulls fly over, Black-headed Gull and Herring Gull. (23)

    Stourbridge was the town of the happiest years of my childhood and as I reached Wychbury Hill memories flooded back of picnics, sheep, Sweet Chestnuts and Christmas Trees.

    A Raven (24) flies over as I stop to iPhone photograph the scene, a memory of a family picnic by the now renovated obelisk being disturbed by a sheep in the next field suddenly giving birth to a new-born lamb. Well, it would have been a calf, would it? The reason the memory is so clear in my mind as I lean on a 5-bar gate and look over the fields, is that all of the other sheep in the field rushed over to surround the mother, encircling her with their love and concern.

Carrying on and heading towards Pedmore, a Stock Dove (25) is in the stubbly area of a field as I photograph the view north towards Dudley and

Brierley Hill and a Green Woodpecker (26) yaffles and flies off towards Wychbury behind me.

    A little further down the lane I stop at the place we used to walk so often to access Wychbury Hill. Back in the mid-1960s there was an awful and evil mink farm here that I used to be both fascinated by and appalled. Even at the age of ten I was sure that having animals in such tiny cages, dozens of them, was wrong. Glad to see that there is no sign of it now.

    Wychbury Hill, maybe the one place where my love and passion for nature really began. Newting, tree climbing, woodland exploring, making dens, the area had the lot for a young inquisitive boy.

Down to Hob Green Primary School, my school when a child. Memories of Mrs Turley and Mr Gould, my two favourite form teachers there. Memories of kiss chase and Bulldog, fights and hide and seek, football and cricket, the latter had me captain of the school cricket team and in a match against the teachers, hardly fair, was it? I missed the wickets for an easy run out from a few feet away!

    A sad place to pass is where our family’s first dog, Penny got run over and killed as she followed me to school. I had kept trying to get her to go home but too late. Penny went under the back wheels of a car she chased and that was that. A morning off school as the driver took me to a police station to report the incident and then took me to school to explain why I was late! Strange to think that that seemed OK at the time.

    To St Stephen’s Park next, our family’s favourite park and brilliant for kids, after cycling past our first Stourbridge family home, 67 Drew Crescent. Stopped to natter with two lovely ladies, mother and daughter, Gaynor and Jo.

    Into the park and stopped once more, this time by an amazing woman, Sally Grainger, who told of her cycle ride for a charity, Myeloma Research, from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

Past another Stourbridge family home, 43 Brackendale Way, next door back in the mid-19060s to a famous snooker player, Rex Williams and into, eventually Stourbridge Centre.

    The state of my room and the service received at the B & B for the night will be left to you imagination. I never write negative reports but this place, fascinating as it was for its 1930s features came close to receiving one!
    

Day one complete with a short ride, lots of nostalgia and the realisation that maybe, just maybe I may be too old for this lark!