Mark Walters
banner
mark-walters.bsky.social
Mark Walters
@mark-walters.bsky.social

Archaeologist at Heneb: The Trust for Welsh Archaeology. Into: Sound & Music, Photography, Botany, Dragonflies, Palaeontology, Astronomy, Art, LiDAR, Ancient History, Numismatics, Gaming, Border Collies

Engineering 23%
Political science 17%

I have never read a novel set in the Black Country before but found this one in a review. Set around the Pelsall & Brownhills collieries & canals in the 1870’s. It uses the Black Country dialect in conversations which you pick up after a while. A good read and beautifully evocative writing.

It’s a constant battle with rural landowners isn’t it. Our village benefitted by having a retired lady from Natural England on the local council who was really good at negotiating public footpath opening on neglected routes and the network has really developed over the last 10 years.

EA won’t bother unless it’s a main river or tributary of a main river. We have reported to Natural Resources Wales in the past as the Montgomeryshire Canal is a SSSI and SAC in places, but they never do anything either.

All that quality topsoil washing off the fields into the canal as a brown silt. The farmer ploughs right up to the edge of the canal here so anything that goes onto the field surface (cow slurry, fertiliser, sprayed treatments) also washes into the canal.

Donation page to help secure the Ellastone Bronze Age gold fastener for The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Staffordshire and prevent it being bought by a private collector….. www.stokemuseums.org.uk/pmag/help-sa...
www.stokemuseums.org.uk

I always check out which species of Gulls have landed in the fields around us. Most people don’t give them a second look & they just get dismissed as generic ‘seagulls’, but I like to know what is passing through. In this case about 100 Lesser black-backed & some smaller juvenile Black-headed Gulls

This solitary Cyclamen is always the first ground colour along the canal, well ahead of the carpet of Primroses lining the towpath this year

Reflections and glowing hazel catkins in some unexpected sunshine this morning down the Montgomeryshire Canal

🐕 👀 You should be playing with me not reading that new novel 🙂
My new book Still In A Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers, and the Reinvention of Rock, 1984-94 is out in June on @whiterabbitbks.bsky.social . It's a love letter to the music of my youth and a flashback to the most exciting time of my writing life. Pre-order geni.us/StillInADream

Yes, the intro was a good read 👍
BREAKING: A Gamekeeper has pleaded guilty in England’s first-ever Hen Harrier persecution case.

Covert video and audio gathered lawfully by the RSPB Investigations team has helped expose the deliberate targeting of a Hen Harrier, leading to a landmark guilty plea:

www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happen... 👈

Late afternoon wellness break in the sunshine on the Breidden - needed this ☀️🙂

It will become a vital archaeological finds guide in the future if everything is dated by type in there 🙂 In fact some community digs have already used crisp packets and BBE dates on other 20th century wrappers to date events eg. the Kelvingrove skatepark closure.

If you can get a research project going with the Uni that would be great 👍

It’s a lovely bit of data showing that the interior is well preserved 👍

Reposted by Mark Walters

What lies Beneath (the soil)?

The Iron Age hillfort of Chalbury #Dorset, interior roundhouse platforms showing up beautifully:

1) composite #LiDAR visualization courtesy of @mark-walters.bsky.social

2) magnetometry survey by Dave Stewart in 2014

We count at least 73 houses 😲

#HillfortsWednesday

Great to have a new Sarathy Korwar album in the house. If you love good drumming/percussion infused music this is for you. We were lucky to see his band playing live in Shrewsbury back in 2023 and it was a fab night.

I couldn’t get to the Wiltshire Museum to see this exhibition of artworks taking inspiration from the cultural heritage of the Wiltshire downland landscape, but managed to get a copy of the exhibition booklet. Love Rose Ferraby’s new work along with the other artists included.

😁

Wow, that’s a monster 😋

I thought I was a bit late between 12-1pm but still saw all of our normal visitors. It probably helps that the neighbours put out food although we never used feeders. We are right next to agricultural fields too so there’s always something passing through.

Always nice to see the male catkins appear on the Alder trees along the Montgomeryshire Canal. They give the trees a slightly reddish tinge before the catkins go green

Rhysnant hedgerows

Did the RSPB Garden Birdwatch. All the usual suspects dropped in except for Dunnocks which I haven’t seen so far this year. Can’t really count the Little Egret that stood in the field beyond the garden or the Red Kite and Cormorant that flew over.

A thoroughly unsettling score too by the brilliant Mica Levi

One of those completely understated but totally chilling films. The real horror is happening just over the garden wall, but you never see it. On Channel 4 films.

Funny how I thought this film would have been better made if it took on a supernatural element…and then it does…

Thought I would give the Tiger film a go. A long time since I have watched a WWII film. While the notion of a tiger tank crew being sent on a rescue mission into Russian territory is ridiculous it did have some really tense moments & the bit about tiger tanks being able to ford 4m of water is true.