Reflected weather

My Walk this Week 230 – Disregarding the Weather

My walk this week is through my local Coedbach Park and I was disregarding the weather as I set out. Autumn has typically mixed weather but regardless of this, my head as well as my body needs to get out for a walk as regularly as possible.

So when the sun came out around lunchtime I thought Aha! This is a good opportunity for a walk. Of course by the time I had changed my shoes and got a coat on, the sky was darkening again, but I didn’t let that put me off and carried on out the door.

I reached the park before the first drops fell and fortunately I had brought an umbrella but even so I felt it advisable to stand under a tree and wait.

In the short video above, which also acts as my soundscape for this week, I start out in the oak woods where the magnificent trees, undergrowth and footpaths do the best job of calming any turmoil I may be feeling inside. The stress and mental congestion that is there for any number of reasons, but not least our current Covid-19 lockdown and all that goes with that, is handled admirably by nature and the elements, even the rain.

And after the rain comes the sunlight and as I wandered on down towards the salt marshes, the River Loughor was at just the right level to provide me with a beautiful reflection of the sky as the sun pushed through aa little gap in the clouds.

new growth, June 2020

My Walk this Week 212 – Back Through the Park Again

My walk this week revisits a walk taken in our local park in June two years ago. There have been some changes to the park in that time, but I was focusing on the natural growth then, just as I do now.

playground

The last two photos in the sequence below were in fact taken in April and then June this year and show the stump of a tree in the middle of the footpath through the woods. The stump of the cut tree clearly refused to die and the photo from June demonstrates its determination to live and thrive again.

The recording I made two years ago, of a song thrush in the woods has not lost any of its beauty for me, so although I do not have a soundscape from June this year, I have enjoyed listening to this again and I hope you will too.

Song Thrush in the Woods

The media player does not show on the WordPress Reader, so please visit the website to listen to the sound clip and view the images at the same time.

undergrowth

Dry Weather – Overgrowth and Undergrowth

In the park woodland the undergrowth is seeing an overgrowth and we have had so much unusually good weather lately that the water level in the park pond has dropped dramatically – the bullrushes are going well but the mud is being exposed.

empty pond

Where once there were bluebells, now there is a rapidly thickening jungle of bracken. Above, in the oak trees a son thrush sings and it’s little one (?) down on the ground looks slightly bewilderedContinue reading

Woodland backdrop

My Walk this Week – Spring Walk in A Woodland Park

My walk this week is in my local park – it’s a beautiful place and in recent years has been managed and developed by a volunteer group. I am ashamed to say I have not contributed my time to this group unless you include the promotion of the place via this blog.

Woodland Reflections

The management and development of the woodland and other areas is a good thing in many respects, certainly it is if it gets more people using and benefiting from it. For myself, I love it now and I loved it before just as much. I suspect the birdsContinue reading

Underfoot and Overhead

Completing the meandering loop of this week’s walk brought me to the oak woods of Coedbach Park.  It looks like there is plenty underfoot to keep the squirrels going through the winter. Overhead the twisting branches of these wonderful crooked trees will provide progressively less shade from the weather as the season moves on. Whatever weather the seasons bring, it is unlikely to stop me enjoying the sights and sounds I encounter on my walks.

acorns

crooked oak trees