Category Archives: Nature

Hunting for Snails

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My walk this week with the Taste of Gower walkers has taken in coastal burrows, expansive beach, woodland and now marshland. Emerging from the woods we came across three people sitting in the middle of the marshland, heads bent in concentration as they hunted for and counted a particular species of snail that was said to inhabit that stretch of land.

The weather was still dry at that stage of the walk but it wasn’t long before the rain reached us and we donned our coats. The last stretch of footpath took us back towards Llanmadoc and the excellent cafe where the organisers of these walks, the Gower Landscape Partnership, paid for the tea and cakes provided.

researchers

Many of the people joining these walks come from a broad range of disadvantaged and other “hard to reach” groups. If it weren’t for the support provided by organisations like the Gower Landscape Project, many of those people would never have the opportunity to get out and walk, appreciate, benefit from and enjoy the countryside so near to them and yet so far.

A significant part of the funding that allows this and many other organisation to provide these services comes from the EU and it is unrealistic to think that if the EU funding were lost as a result of the UK leaving, it would be replaced by our own government. The same can be said for the arts.

Hunting for Snails
Tree Bark
Wooden Gate
Walkers in the wet

Rock Design

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Walking along the upper footpath on the western edge of Penllergare Valley Woods, you can find (if you look) an area dramatic rock faces towering above the woodland floor. My first photo today was taken on my iPhone and reveals the structure and patterns in the rock.

The structure in the rock is obviously natural, but whether it is natural that these patterns have been revealed, I cannot say. I wonder about it because so many features of the valley were designed by John Dillwyn Llewellyn during Victorian times and it is entirely possible that the drama of the feature was intended.

Either way, nature has entirely taken over now and although there are more rock faces to be seen than I have shown here, the more the season moves on, the more the greenery tries to hide them.

rock patterns

On this upper footpath the distant sounds of Swansea and other signs of man can be heard more easily in the background than on the sound clip I posted on Monday at the start of this week’s walk. That piece of field recording was made near the valley floor which is shielded from the urban influence.

But the sounds of an urban environment can come and go according to the lie of the land in your immediate surroundings. Sometimes the background soundscape can be hidden by features like this enclave of rocks, while at other times the rocks themselves may reflect those sounds back to you. So much depends on the atmospheric circumstances prevailing at the time of listening.

Penllergare Woodland Sounds

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Broom Bloom

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Moving to higher ground from the woodland river on my walk this week in Penllergare Valley Woods, we came upon a familiar meadow where, a year or two ago, we picnicked in similar sunshine. A broom was in full bloom and my favourite ribwort provided a foreground to this peaceful scene on a beautiful day

broom bloom

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Enjoying the Waterfall

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There are people hidden in this first photo today from my walk this week at Penllergare Valley Woods – you can just see them near the centre of the image. They are enjoying the area on the river where the waterfall from the lake flows over the rock arrangement constructed by John Dillwyn Llewellyn back in the 19th century when he was developing the original valley gardens.

Penllergaer Woods-8

The colour of the rhododendrons in this image is accompanied by foxgloves below, and then there is the beautiful yellow of buttercups in a marshy looking meadow displaying the lushness of the environment at this time of year.

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My Walk this Week – Woodland Wander

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My walk this week takes me back to Penllergare Valley Woods. I have produced StillWalks videos of all four seasons here but that is no reason not to take another look. In this walk the conditions are inevitably different and as well as that, further work has been done in the park by The Penllergare Trust volunteers.

I don’t remember this arbour and arch being here perviously and of course, the next time I visit, it will have grown more and changed again.

willow arbour in the making

I wil  be posting just one or two sound clips from the woods through this week, but I have a soundscape for the walk to post on Sunday with the walk review.

Penllergare Woodland Sounds

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Nature Taking Over

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We are nearly at the time of year when it seems to me that as I walk or drive around both urban and rural areas, nature is about to pounce. The roadside and footpath plants are just laying in wait for the right moment to leap out and claim back the world that is theirs.

The evidence is starting to show – the living greenery pushing through the fence below only needs a second or two in the greater scheme of things to utterly take over the man made structure designed to hold things back, keep things in or out.

Fence growth

If you need more proof, then look at the wild garlic in the patch of riverside woodland below . . . and this is nothing in comparison to some other areas of woodland garlic I have seen.

During a recent drive on the Gower to help with a litter pick at Horton, I passed through the area of rolling woodland near Parkmill – I could not believe my eyes (or my nose) but I am sorry to say that it is a difficult place to stop your car when en route to another destination, so I did not get any photographs. I will have to put this in my diary for my next trip and make sure I have the time stop.

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Riverside Wildflowers

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On my walk this week along the riverside footpath by the Tawe from Morfa it was Spring going on Summer and the flowers were out to prove it – all but the buddleia.

Approaching one of the footbridges across the river there were plenty of the ribwort in the image below. It is a wildflower I particularly like, partly because of good memories playing with them as a child, but particularly at this time of year when they are in flower.

wildflower - Ribwort plantain

Of course, all of the wildflowers are special in their own right, even the dandelion – when it’s not all over your garden lawn! Below there is also, wood violet, herb robert, cowslip and primroses all lining the footpath of the River Tawe. There is one more, but I will post that tomorrow!

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