My Walk this Week 253 – Revisiting the Nature Reserve

Posted on 16/04/202113/04/2021 by Alastair

My walk this week returns to the nature reserve I began exploring a couple of weeks ago with my phone camera. When I returned with my DSLR camera I enjoyed finding practical angles and appropriate subject matter to try and represent the tangled and wild environment.

Some of this old quarry has been used as a bit of a dumping ground in the past, but even the these items are being swallowed up by nature and I suspect that the only object that will resist both time and natural forces is that dreaded and indestructible material plastic.

Nature Reserve – Listen out for the Red Kite at 0:20, 1:04 and 1:23 as it wheels around, harried by a crow.

My Walk this Week 130 – Soundscape for an Autumn Valley

Posted on 26/10/201819/10/2018 by Alastair

My walk this week in a damp, misty Welsh valley Autumn landscape provided me with a fantastic and varied soundscape. The walk took me up one side of the valley and back down the middle where the river was further engorged by rushing tributaries.

Having enjoyed the Autumn colours of a Staghorn Sumac, I descended the twisting path towards the river and recorded its approaching sound as I went. I have kept most of this clip included in the soundscape below (making it longer than usual) because the changes in its timbre as I twist and turn are, to me, fascinating and beautiful. Also included Continue reading→

My Walk this Week 127 – Forest Passage and Soundscape

Posted on 05/10/201801/10/2018 by Alastair

My passage through the forest on my walk this week took me from one half concealed entrance to another, past open field and marshland, along ageing track and abandoned rusty objects.

My entrance to the woods was through a rapidly disintegrating wooden passage (see the first post for this week) and my exit was through a small iron gate so rusty and covered in ivy that it was only possible to sidle round it rather than through.

My first photo of this gate was underexposed but I decided to keep itContinue reading→

My Walk this Week 127 – A Seed in Time

Posted on 03/10/201803/10/2018 by Alastair

The seed in question on my walk this week is a beech nut – perhaps I should say hundreds of beech nuts as the forest floor was covered in them.

Whoops! I have been rightly corrected about them being beech nuts – in fact they are sweet chestnuts . . . but there were lots of beechnuts in the woods as well so maybe I can be forgiven 😉

There are seemingly many more squirrels this year as well, so how many beech nuts go on, or grow on, to become new trees may be in part a result of the the number consumed by the local wildlife.

conjoined beech nuts

beech nut perspective

Ready to go!

Going!

Gone!

Tree ivy forest

My Walk this Week 126 – Gnoll Park

Posted on 24/09/201822/09/2018 by Alastair

My walk this week is to a park I have not visited for a few years. Gnoll Country Park in Neath is a beautiful place with lakes, woodland, cascades, wildlife, wildflowers, history and a great community building.

Entering the park from the lower southern entrance was new for me and I got to see a part of the park I had not been round previously but no less enjoyable for that. I was taking the opportunity to walk here because I was in Neath anyway as I have lately been working on the website for a new gallery in the town – Queen Street Gallery. Continue reading→

My Walk this Week – The Golden Light of Dawn

Posted on 25/12/201721/12/2017 by Alastair

The day felt cold but looked good for my walk this week with the mist and the golden light of dawn. The natural colouring in the image below makes it look like an old photo, I think, with its sepia tones, but in fact nothing has been done to it other than a fairly restrained crop. I posted it on Instagram and Facebook and it got a few likes, but here it is again.

I started out on my walk from my garden, looking through the hedge to a “red sky in the morning”, as the old adage goes. I needed no warning about the weather though, as I was going for a walk in the woods anyway.

Regular followers of the StillWalks blog should be becoming familiar with the woodland that is the feature of this walk. Hopefully I am able to shed a different light on it each time I visit. Of course it is the light of the sun and the time of year or day that changes the look and feel of any location and on this occasion the woodland dawn was . . . hmm, can you have a muted spectacle? It was spectacular and though muted by the mist, this only made it even more magical.Continue reading→

Old Wood

Posted on 19/08/201419/08/2014 by Alastair

I don’t know how much, if any, of Troserch Woodland is ancient but it is a beautiful place to walk and the cycle of growth and decay is inevitable in all woodland let alone anywhere else.

Below are two more images that didn’t make it into the StillWalks video below – “Troserch Woodland Walk”

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Dark Woods and Dressage

Posted on 19/09/201319/09/2013 by Alastair

Last weekend I found myself with time to spare as I waited for the Clydach Riding Club Dressage Show to start. Having turned up earlier than I needed to, I took the opportunity to have a short walk through the woodland next to the show field.

The weather had been pretty wet for several days but on Saturday the clouds at least had dried up, if not the ground, the plants and the undergrowth. The dry “crump” of my footsteps in snow (see yesterday’s post) was nowhere to be heard in the woodland landscape at Ynystawe near Swansea.

In amongst the trees the scene was dark as well as wet, making photography problematic. The dressage show photos can be found at StillWalks Photography.