Looking back at a year of walks through my local forest, today takes me to February when there was fog and frost and fungi to be seen on my early morning walks.
Category Archives: Nature
Ending the Year – A Walk in the Forest
Towards ending the year I am taking a walk through my records of approximately 150 walks through a local forest in the previous year (2015). Each day over the last two weeks of this year will represent the sights and sounds of one month during that time – on the two Sundays I will review the previous six months.
Today I am presenting a selection of images and a couple of sound clips from the forest in January 2015.
Lakeside Leaves
Whether floating in the wind or on the water, there were plenty of leaves to be enjoyed on my urban lakeside walk this week. My favourites are the banner-like leaves of the tall lakeside reeds.
Down By the Lakeside – video clip
Standing at the water’s edge you get a different perspective on the patterns created by the rippling water and reflection of light.
Seat with an Evening View
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.
Into the Light
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.
Walking Towards the Sunlight
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.
Nature and Power Patterns Against a Blue Sky
The patterns I saw on my walk this week were wonderful. Both natural and man made, these objects were clear and crisp against the most significant aspect of the views – the blue sky. Whether it was the near fractal patterns of a bare tree or the electrical loops of power lines, the bright blue sky made them stand out and I was in awe at the complex beauty around me.
