My walk this week was longer than I had originally intended and I think that is partly the result of the straight path I was on. Even where the path was not straight, the bend was long and gentle and my memory of it from a number of years ago was not clear enough for me not to want to see round the bend. The result was that the sun was pretty low in the sky on my return.
The path is still straight on my walk this week though there was one long bend before reaching this natural tunnel. It would be darker in the spring and summer but with the leaves on the ground rather than on the trees, it is no less beautiful and having moved away from the working urban environment there is also less aural evidence of man. The motorway is only a few hundred yards from this tree tunnel but the prevailing wind direction carries the sound away and so it can hardly be heard at all.
December, the last month of the year and a last walk from my local forest. Not all photos are from the same walk as with approximately 150 walks there over the year, the selection of images used over the past two weeks have inevitable been taken from more than one walk in each month.
October is often the wettest month for us here in Wales but whether the cloudscape below is evidence of this I could not say – I simply found it an interesting arrangement. In reality the weather conditions these days are seemingly so erratic, it is sometimes difficult to know which season we are in or what month it is. It is not easy to tell from these photos or the sound clip if the weather on my forest walks in October were wet or not.
Moving into the second half of my year of forest walks in a local woodland the place is dark with dappled shade from canopy of foliage. This is a mixed woodland with both broad leaved trees and coniferous. The two types of tree tend to stay with their own and so the sound of the wind can be, if not distinctly different as it blows through either needles or leaves, certainly discernible, though perhaps not in the short sound clip below.
This flower-to-be is a classic of the forest in June and if you don’t immediately recognise it without its colour, check out the patch of colour in the background as a hint or the other photos below. The sun and the colours are bright in June and with the forest in full bloom the light and shade is dappled.
My forest walks in May were typical for this time of year in Wales – everything was very green – except for the yellow buttercups or dandelions!
To judge by my photos from my forest walks in April, the weather was good that month – at least some of the time. However, evidence both in the puddle below in which the trees are reflected, and the pattern of pine needles on the footpath in shot 3, would suggest that we had plenty of rain in April as well. The sunlight that is prompting the young fern to unfurl in shot 5 proves the advantage of having both light and water.
