My walk this week is around an urban lake that I have visited before but not at this time of year. It had been my intention to take my camera and sound kit with me but as I was focusing on the meeting I had before this walk, I completely forgot the kit and had to use my iPhone for both photography and sound recording.
This evening landscape at the end of my walk this week in Penclawdd on the North Gower coast was not really very late in the day – just after 4pm. The days seem so short at this time of day, but I must try to remember those further north who, if you go far enough north, see no real sunlight at all through the day. I cannot imagine what that is like.
The sounds of this walk include many of the activities of the place, both man-made and natural. It was good to find myself hidden from the traffic and industry so easily by such a low lying shield of land as I walked at the edge of the salt marsh.
Enjoy the sounds along with selected images from my walk below.
Penclawdd Walk Soundscape
As I walked back through Penclawdd on my walk this week and headed for my car, the light dimmed further and the birds began to roost . . .
It was very cold (for Wales) on this Winter afternoon walk and I didn’t sit on this perfectly placed seat, but I did enjoy the last of the light. I know I posted shots of this sky at a slightly earlier stage of its cycle yesterday, so please excuse me, but I could not resist posting again as the light faded and the colours deepened.
I met my friend David Wibberly – Photographer just after taking these photos and he was commenting on the bad light for photography. I explained that as my intention is to try to present what you would see and hear on a walk, whenever it is taken, the issue of light is something I just have to deal with.
Finally on my walk this week I rounded the corner of the edge lands to the salt marsh and was able to appreciate the vast cloudless afternoon sky. The only blemish(?) on the pale blue>green>yellow>orange canvas was a distant airplane. The other mark on that sheet of colour apart from the land itself is a tiny object on the horizon line – that is Whitford lighthouse. This a Victorian cast iron built feature of the Burry Inlet that I have been to within one or two hundred yards but have yet to find the time to time it right and get right out to it when the tide is low enough . . . someday I will.
Heading further along I met up with the river which at low tide features some very glorious mud – “mud, mud, glorious mud. nothing quite like it but . . .” something the birds in the area thoroughly enjoy or at least feed in. Enjoy the sound below.
Down on the edge of the salt marsh as I walked towards the sunlight of a more open landscape I came across a couple of interesting features. The first were these (there were a cluster of them) earthy looking large boulder-like objects sitting at the edge of the slightly higher ground I stood on. I guess they were once part of that higher ground and the sea has simply eroded away all that once surrounded them.
The route of my walk this week took me around the back of working buildings in Penclawdd on the North Gower coast. Although it was bitterly cold in this area shaded from the sun and the beautiful views across the salt marsh were obscured, there were still fascinating finds to be made. I guess they are everyday things at this time of year – frosty grass, icy pools and so on – but looking at the patterns the cold weather creates and the colours affected by the light on this day, I found there were any number of things to record, both sights and sounds.
Penclawdd at Work
My walk this week is in a place I have walked and worked in on a number of occasions. As it was a clear day and I was there anyway, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a short walk along the edge of the salt marshes in front of Penclawdd on the North Gower coastline.
With the marshes stretching out across the Burry Inlet and Loughor Estuary, the sky becomes massive. While you could often expect to see a scene of turbulent clouds, on this day there was not a cloud in sight. The subtle colours blended smoothly from blues and greens to mustard and yellow, all gradually changing to include deep reds later in the walk.
Penclawdd Traffic, Frost and Leaves