Tag Archives: water

Burry Inlet

My Walk this Week 236 – Coastal Path

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My walk this week shows a small section of the coastal path along the Loughor Estuary and Burry Inlet in South Wales.

The soundscape for the still image video above was recorded separately and apart from trimming, I have done very little work on it. My walk started in a semi-industrial area where you can here the sounds of machinery as well as traffic. The traffic never disappears but does fade a little as the path approaches the edges of the estuary.

It was a bitterly cold morning as can be seen in the images below and my hands felt like they were going to drop off as I recorded and photographed the scene.

The quality of light excited me. Where there is a wide expanse of still water and a relatively even light in the sky, the two reflect and bounce off each other, creating subtle changes of colour and luminance that you do not see when the surface of the water is more broken or choppy. Or indeed, when the sky is more broken in its textures and with higher contrast in its areas of light and shade.

footpath
winter reeds
footbridge
Burry Inlet
Calm waters
mossy stones
cracked mud outcrop
frost
ice
fishing
trees in sunlight

My Walk this Week 234 – The Park Through My Viewfinder

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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
trees in sunlight
sweeping branches
sweeping branches
Autumn - Winter details
Autumn – Winter details
textural
textural
seeds
seeds
moss
moss
2nd woods
2nd woods
pond reflection
pond reflection
woodland waterway
woodland waterway
footpath
footpath
natural bend
natural bend
fungi fungi
fungi fungi
Coedbach oakwood
Coedbach oakwood

Gate to the mountain

My Walk this Week 232 – Wandering the Hillside

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My walk this week is more of a wander on Cefn Drum, one of our local hills. Being a sunny Sunday afternoon, the hillside was busy with 4 or 5 other people gently strolling along the labyrinth of footpaths, so I didn’t hang around long and beat a retreat back down the hollow way seen in my last post.

The video includes flowing water again, but this is a sound it can be hard not to hear in Wales, especially at this time of year. And once again the video is also my soundscape for this week and indeed it includes separately recorded sound as well as that recorded as video.

My walk started well before the gate to the mountain (we say mountain but really it is a hill rising to about 750 feet), but a gate is a good starting point, a threshold, whatever rusty state it may be in.

My walk on the hillside ended with another battered aged gate, one with a different perspective, at least from the angle I photographed it.

rural landscape
rural landscape
Gate to the mountain
Gate to the mountain
hillside path
hillside path
white bark brown bracken
white bark brown bracken
lowering sun
lowering sun
branch of the labyrinth
branch of the labyrinth
hollow way leaves
hollow way leaves
old gate perspective
old gate perspective
fibre attachment
fibre attachment
holey rust
holey rust
evening field
evening field

 

My Walk this Week 216 – Returning To What Was

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My walk this week takes a look and a listen to what was at one time a railway track. Listening to the soundscape for the walk also means returning to the sounds we were used to pre-pandemic.

The old railway track could still be seen in places when we first moved here many years ago. Things have changed significantly over that time and this part of that old rail route has become a wonderful slice of wild woodland. Unfortunately I suspect its days are numbered as the ever encroaching local housing and road developments continue apace and I was sorry to find my way blocked by a building site.

The soundscape below could have been edited down further. Although there are few birds singing at this time of day, I still enjoyed the sound of the wind in the trees and even the nuances of the distant motorway traffic. Returning to what was, pre-pandemic, means inevitably more traffic on the roads, jet aeroplanes in the sky (listen carefully) and of course the sirens of police cars. This last one I decided not to include and is the point at which I stopped recording.

Old Railway Woodland Soundscape

 

park exit. through trees
across the stream
wildflower purple
wildflower mauve
brambles to be
wildflowers pink
foxgloves
crinkly covering of lichen
woodland footpath
wildflowers and path
wildflower
wood end
creeper creeping
wildflowers white
overgrowing path
thistle and bee
wildflowers past
wildflowers past
thistle head
green
thistle and path
new build

trees and marsh grass

My Walk this Week 194 – The Marsh and Ciara

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My walk this week is another to my local salt marsh, this time during the tail end of Storm Ciara and the wind that was probably worse in other parts of the UK. All the same, we weren’t tempted to venture out in the wild weather.

entering the salt marsh

When crossing the River Loughor on the motorway, I could see that the the tide was high and the marshes were getting there regular dose of salt. But by the time I got down there the sea had retreated and I was able to get to the river bank.

I loitered a bit amongst the trees at the edge of the marsh as the wind was strong and pretty cold and so the photographs I took focus mainly on that view point and some of the lichee details and tree textures around me.

Windy Marsh Soundscape

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The soundscape is a bit shorter than usual and perhaps the main feature of it is the sound of motorway traffic being blown strongly from the southwest. However, if you listen carefully, you will also hear the hissing rustles of the marsh grass which is a sound I love, though less because of the sound itself and more because of the marsh environment it conjures in my mind.

So click the play button to listen while viewing the images below – click the first one and then again to move forward through the carousel.

footpath to the salt marsh
footpath to the salt marsh
entering the salt marsh
entering the salt marsh
marsh grass
marsh grass
Lichen textures
Lichen textures
Lichen textures
Lichen textures
moss and lichen
moss and lichen
tree lichen
tree lichen
branches
branches
trees and marsh grass
trees and marsh grass
trees and marsh grass
trees and marsh grass
trees and marsh grass
trees and marsh grass
footbridges
footbridges
sea water
sea water
marsh and river
marsh and river
grass and grass
grass and grass
Tide and wind
Tide and wind
churning patterns
churning patterns
River Loughor
River Loughor

repetition

My Walk this Week 192 – Maritime Reflections

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My walk this week is from Swansea Bay and Maritime Quarter and, yet again, followed meetings, one of which was on my phone as I stood at the side of the marina and watched the still water reflecting the yacht masts and a blue sky with just one or two white clouds.

wobbly light

As I stood there the reflections were almost as straight as the masts themselves as the water was so still. Later on, after visiting the beach and listing to the rhythm of the waves, I returned to find the marina water rippled with activityContinue reading→