Tag Archives: woodland

beech nut opening

My Walk this Week 127 – A Seed in Time

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The seed in question on my walk this week is a beech nut – perhaps I should say hundreds of beech nuts as the forest floor was covered in them.

spiky Autumn detail

Whoops! I have been rightly corrected about them being beech nuts – in fact they are sweet chestnuts . . . but there were lots of beechnuts in the woods as well so maybe I can be forgiven 😉

There are seemingly many more squirrels this year as well, so how many beech nuts go on, or grow on, to become new trees may be in part a result of the the number consumed by the local wildlife.

conjoined beech nuts
beech nut perspective
Ready to go!
Going!
Gone!
Tree ivy forest
South Wales morning landscape

My Walk this Week 127 – Autumn Morning

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My walk this week is on a beautiful Autumn morning in a place well known to me but always new as well. The fact that I have seen the scenes and details of this Welsh valley and woodland many times make them no less enjoyable.

woodland detail

There are changes of course since I was last here – strong winds have brought down more trees and branches but the ground underfoot, in spite of the return of notable rainfall, is still dry and firm.

I love to see the little heads of peristomes standing upContinue reading→

holey tree

My Walk this Week 126 – Woodland Wonders

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The wonders of the woodland, the lakes, the colours and the soundscape . . . and the textures and the bird life and the patterns and the fact that the rain held off for me on my walk this week around Gnoll Estate Country Park in Neath, South Wales – these are some of the things that I enjoyed about this walk.

Early Autumn colour

One thing I did not remember from previous visits (going back a few years) was the oak tree with a huge hole through its trunk. Clearly the park authorities felt it was a wonder worth preserving and have reinforced the natural structure with metal rods.Continue reading→

York University

My Walk this Week 125 – Colour in Construction

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I was looking for woodland on my walk this week – and I found it, to a degree, behind the colour in construction of the Science and Technology Block of York University.

York University

It was open woodland straggling along the back of the university which I picked up again on my return across open fields. The colours used in the modern buildings reflected those of older walls surrounding the adjacent York House BIRT facility. I enjoyed the colour in both as well as the textures and patterns in the old, and the cleanliness and hard edges of the new.Continue reading→

hidden concrete

My Walk this Week 125 – Concrete and Trees

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Looking for urban woodland on my walk this week, perhaps inevitably, I found concrete and trees. While trying to keep to the narrow wooded area behind York University, I intentionally crossed a road via an underpass in order to find the castle-like structure I had spotted on Googlemaps.

light and shade

Similar in design to Clifford’s Tower in the centre of York, the structure was much larger than that, and made of concrete. From the ground it was well camouflaged by the foliage patterns of light and shade cast by tall trees and the sun on the imposing walls and rusty windows.

It wasn’t a brutalist modern day castle, butContinue reading→

red berries

My Walk this Week 125 – Berried in York Woodland

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Returning to my weekly theme of walks, I have recently been in search of woodland inYork. While the city is full of beautiful, mature trees, there is a lack of woodland – something that I am used to having where I live. I know it is a city and I shouldn’t expect to find woodland in its centre, but even around its outskirts the land is flat and farmed.

black berries

Following a footpath through a strip of land behind the university I first found seed heads left over from the Summer and then the berries and fruit of Autumn. Huge conkers on horse chestnut trees, black and red berries poisonous to humans, rose hips and brambles – they were all abundant and added to the colour around me.Continue reading→

undergrowth

Dry Weather – Overgrowth and Undergrowth

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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.

empty pond

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→

lake surface

Waterside and Woodland

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Just realised I put the wrong date in on this post so it’s a little later in the day than usual – hope you all missed it!

Following the lakeside on my walk this week at The Waterside – Felindre, where we also enjoyed Welsh Valley Alpacas, we spotted some of the other fauna to be found there, namely a host of little tadpoles and fish.

woodland alley

From the waterside we climbed up into the woods where we enjoyed the bluebells still covering the sun-dappled glades and the alley-ways of trees. The carpet of needles was soft underfoot and, away from the crowd of people visiting the alpacas,Continue reading→