Category Archives: My Walk this Week

St James's Park

My Walk this Week 135 – St James’s Park, London

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My walk this week is in St James’ Park, which I visited during some spare time on a recent trip to London. There were plenty of people out and about enjoying the colours and textures of Autumn leaves, squirrels, a range of geese, swans, ducks, gulls, herons, pelicans, the inevitable pigeons, and a bird I could not identify.

The black, white and brown bird in the middle of the sequence below shows a waterfowl which I would like to identify – if anyone can help with this, I would be very grateful.

St James's Park

I have visited London many times over the years and it is a fantastic place to explore with its parks and architecture, culture and the arts. However, I found the number of people there a little overwhelming, though I know it wasn’t as busy as it can be and my visit was not spoiled in any way. I guess I am just not used to it, living in a small town as I do.

Click the play button and then the first image to listen and look through the features of my walk this week.Continue reading→

small herd of goats in forest

My Walk this Week 134 – Surprised By Goats

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Click the play button and then the first image to listen and look through the features of my walk this week. It’s another local forest and while it may be true that all forests and woodland consist largely of trees, they are also all quite different. One thing was certainly unexpected on this walk and that was the goats! Looking at the sharpness of their horns I decided it would be best not to confront them but to negotiate a more diplomatic route through the trees.

Forest Walk Soundscape

Starting from the lower reaches of the woods on the edge of Continue reading→

Autumn pine

My Walk this Week 133 – Autumn Woodland

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My walk this week is through a section of the forest in Penllergaer Valley Woods near Swansea in South Wales. I was keen to find a moment in our currently wet weather to see the colours that I know exist here at this time of year. Being a valley means you get to see the and hear the woodland from different vantage points with overviews of the slopes of yellowing trees as well as the closer details around the footpaths.

The soundscape is different in the depths of the valley to that on its upper edges – this is partly because, down below, you are sheltered from the background sound of traffic on the motorway. But the sound of birds is still masked somewhat by the waterfall at this time of year when it is raging and thundering down from the lake.

I hope that you will click the play button below and listen to the soundscape while viewing the images in sequence – perhaps the sound will help to bring the images to life and bring you closer to my own experience of the walk.

Autumn Woodland Soundscape

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My Walk this Week 133 – Format Change

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Hi everyone, for a number of reasons I have decided that My Walk this Week is going to be posted just once a week . . . on Fridays. So I hope you will look forward to Friday for my next walk which presents the sights and sounds of an Autumn woodland – see the image below as some encouragement to look, read and listen to the post.

The posts will still include a soundscape for the walks and I hope to encourage you to click the play button for these and then browse the images in sequence. This does not give the same experience as a StillWalks® video, which I will soon be making available through membership, but I hope they are still enjoyable and give the opportunity to take five minutes out from the hubbub of modern life.

woodland footpath

 

estuary expanse

My Walk this Week 132 – Another Walk Another Bay

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My walk this week is from another bay not far from where I was walking last week and though it is quite different, it is just as expansive as the last one. Llanelli Bay on the Loughor Estuary in Wales provides just about as long a walk as you would like but I stuck to the eastern end of it thinking there might be fewer people there.

evidence of activity

Please understand that I am not desperate to get away from people (I like people really) but I also like my solitary walks. You will be ale to hear in my soundscape for this week (to be posted as usual on Friday) that if there were not crowds of people, the sounds of those that were there, particularly children and dogs, carried easily in across the mud flats and sand. Continue reading→

mini shells

My Walk this Week 131 – Swansea Bay Shells

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The shells have it in my walk this week on the beach in Swansea Bay – big ones, little ones and multiply connected ones. A beautiful day and some much needed space – there would have been peace as well if it hadn’t been for a light aircraft performing aerobatics overhead. But that was quite an interesting sound, and anyway, as I walked down the beach the sound of the waves masked that in the sky. I’ll post the soundscape on Friday as usual.

multiple shells

One of the best things about Swansea Bay is the expanse of beach when the tide is out and that space was just what I wanted on this morning. There were plenty of other people about enjoying the sunshine and sand (and indeed the blue sky above), but none of that hemmed in any individual and everyone was able to wander the shore in relative solitude and enjoy it in their own way.Continue reading→

beads on feather

My Walk this Week 130 – Damp Autumn Walk

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My walk this week is on a damp Autumn morning. You can’t see it in these photos but the valley was full of mist and the clouds low overhead. The seasons are changing and while bright sunny days can be the most enjoyable, there is also a fantastic range of beauty to be experienced on damp days like this.

Autumn Beeches

The geese and ducks were clearly enjoying the water both in the air and under them and the dampness did not take away the crunchiness of fresh fallen Autumn leaves underfoot. The light, however, was dim and it is that more than anything else that makes a sunny day enjoyable.Continue reading→

Worm's Head, Gower

My Walk this Week 129 – Rhossili from the Archives

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My walk this week shows images from my archive and a walk along Rhossili Down at the end of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales.

looking down on the bay

For all the changes in environmental circumstances from day to day or even hour to hour, these photos from 2014 cannot show any potential differences in the underlying structure and general appearance of the place. The pace of change on a geological time scale is not the same as our lives and although it is true that we sometimes see rocks fall from a cliff or even cliffs collapse as a result of erosion from the sea, the overall changes can be almost imperceptible.Continue reading→