My Walk this Week 243 – Winter Salt Marsh

Posted on 29/01/202106/02/2021 by Alastair

My walk this week shows my local salt marsh in Winter. I know how much we enjoy and benefit from a bright sky and sunshine, but in Winter we have to, we must, try to see the beauty around us in different conditions. SAD is not a condition you want to fall prey to if it can be avoided.

This week I have video, sound and images to hopefully help you enjoy the relative gloom of overcast and wet conditions on my walk across the salt marsh to the old St Teilo’s churchyard and back to the fast thawing pond in the park.

You can only allow the weather to stop you going out for so long – then it becomes imperative that, regardless of rain or snow, you take the exercise and grab as much light as you can – if you are in a position to do so.

The video above obviously includes sound as well as the soundscape below but which one has the better pictures? That’s just a joke really, but it is certainly true that sound conjures up images for us and in the case of StillWalks® videos the soundscapes are the animator of the still images used – see the example on the website home page (Autumn Lakeside Walk). The home page has now been updated to show a short series of seasonal StillWalks videos.

Salt Marsh Soundscape

My Walk this Week 234 – The Park Through My Viewfinder

Posted on 27/11/202026/11/2020 by Alastair

My walk this week looks through my viewfinder at our local park and its pond – Coedbach Park. Coed = wood and Bach = little, so Little Wood Park.

The video above of the pond and the images below were all taken on my DSLR, my “proper” camera, rather than my iPhone which I have used so often lately for my posts. I may have expressed some frustration with the iPhone images but I wouldn’t complain about the quality of the video it takes. The audio was recorded separately on my Zoom H5N recorder.

It was a walk taken at an opportune moment during a busy week when the sun was a rare sight. One advantage of working from home (for many more of us now) is that you can often be flexible with the hours you put in. I would argue that it is important both for yourself and your employer (if you have one) that the health benefits of taking a break for a short walk round your local park, or even just around your garden (again, if you have one), are such that it is invaluable to all – yourself, the people you work for, the people around you. everyone in fact.

I wonder if there is any chance in the future, in the “new normal” as it is being called, that a recognition of the benefits to be gained from activities such as this will become a strategic part of business models and company operations. We can always hope!

trees in sunlight

sweeping branches

Autumn – Winter details

textural

seeds

moss

2nd woods

pond reflection

woodland waterway

footpath

natural bend

fungi fungi

Coedbach oakwood

My Walk this Week 218 – Botanical

Posted on 31/07/202031/07/2020 by Alastair

My walk this week is in the recently re-opened Swansea Botanic Garden and Singleton Park. The Botanic Garden is within the park and had been closed for the coronavirus lockdown.

And thinking of lockdowns and locks, the sound of a garden attendant locking up at an earlier time than would normally be the case, is featured in the soundscape below and took us a little by surprise. We had not been there very long but enjoyed continuing our walk in the park, taking a different route from that on our last visit.

The garden and park were looking beautiful with so many flowers on display, it was a real pleasure to be there and sit quietly for a short while looking at all the colours and listening to the birds and ambience of the area.

What would we do without these natural (albeit cultivated) spaces in our urban landscapes?

Botanic Soundscape

botanic garden approach

red

Yellow

blue

red and bee

like a lantern

Swansea Botanic Garden

more red

deep borders

orange

pale yellow

sunlit

lily pond

lily pond 2

reflection

leaves and water

peaceful park

My Walk this Week 217 – An Evening on the Marshes

Posted on 24/07/202022/07/2020 by Alastair

My walk this week is back on my local salt marshes where the evening was still and the midges were out in their millions.

I went down there for the sunset and then had my back turned, recording sound, when it actually dipped below the horizon.

It was a still evening and there were not many birds singing but as always in this environment, there are gates – specifically four, but there were more people using them than just myself. I have included four in the soundscape but had I included all the instances of use on this short walk there would have been the sound of at least ten!

I understand and accept that by now you may think me obsessed with gates, and you wouldn’t be far wrong. Aside from the individual audio characteristics they have which I enjoy, they are symbolic of so much. They are way markers, milestones, entrances and exits simultaneously, thresholds, limitations, invitations – and they come in so many designs!

There is a bird that appears in the recording at about 01:10 – it was in the woods at the edge of the marsh but I do not know what it is. If anyone can tell me, I would be pleased to know. The Covid-eased traffic is ever present on the motorway but I have focused more on the other sounds in the trees and on the marshes.

Marshes Evening Soundscape

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second gate

across the salt marshes

marsh grasses

light reflections

midges

fotbridge with gates

marsh wildflowers

tall marsh grasses

footpath route

sunset

silhouettes

evening light

calm river

rosebay willow herb

pond at dusk

My Walk this Week 208 – Compare and Contrast

Posted on 22/05/202021/05/2020 by Alastair

My walk this week is green and luscious and through something of a swamp! It is one I have only done once before and that was during an icy winter, so I wanted to compare and contrast the two seasons.

I don’t think I need to say much about the differences as they can be seen in the galleries below, but one of the most interesting to me is the is the water surface in the swamp/pond. In winter it was covered in thick, dark, opaque ice with a dusting of snow while on this more recent walk it is covered in thousands of catkins and algae.

The soundscapes are different as well, and again, I don’t think I need say much. The strange “groaning” sound in the Spring soundscape may be a distant goods train as there is a railway track nearby, but I cannot be certain.

Gorseinon Walk Soundscape and Images

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Afon Llan

green walk

greenery

rhododendrons

wildflowers

last of the bluebells

wildflowers 2

hawthorn

urban woodland footpath

swamp pond surface

catkins on surface

water droplets

swamp surface

cat

lush green

gate

woodland stream

wildflowers 3

woodland exit

gate perspective

gate surface rust

Afon Llan 2

Winter Walk Soundscape and Images

Afon Llan

Afon Dulais ice

solid ice

frozen

frozen woodland bog

Frozen surface

urban footpath

My Walk this Week – Parched Paths

Posted on 16/07/201814/07/2018 by Alastair

My walk this week shows the changes that have taken place in this location since six weeks ago – the ground is now parched where it had been lush and green. The character of the landscape has changed and presents a greater sense of the mediterranean than Wales.

In Wales we say it either was, is, or is going to rain, and it is true that we get what some would say was more than our fair share of it. However, it is also true that we get dry spells (from time to time), but not usually with the heat that we have been experiencing all over Britain for a few weeks now.Continue reading→

Dry Weather – Overgrowth and Undergrowth

Posted on 27/06/201815/06/2018 by Alastair

In the park woodland the undergrowth is seeing an overgrowth and we have had so much unusually good weather lately that the water level in the park pond has dropped dramatically – the bullrushes are going well but the mud is being exposed.

Where once there were bluebells, now there is a rapidly thickening jungle of bracken. Above, in the oak trees a son thrush sings and it’s little one (?) down on the ground looks slightly bewilderedContinue reading→

Enjoying the Springtime Morning Chorus

Posted on 11/05/201807/05/2018 by Alastair

My walk this week through the woodland of my local park was early in the morning and the Springtime birds were still singing their morning chorus. The sun was up and the day was bright and there is nothing like woodland sights and sounds to lift the heart.

As I circled round the far side of the pond and approached the children’s playground the birds and squirrels were going crazy. There were no children up early to play on the hoops and bridges, swings and slides of the playground, but a Blue Tit hopped around the bright painted apparatus andContinue reading→

Tag Archives: pond