Returning to the carpark at the end of my walk this week around the urban lake in the enterprise zone at Llansamlet in Swansea, I was met by one of the lake’s inhabitants! Knowing the reputation for swans being not entirely friendly towards humans, I was slightly cautious when approaching him – but he wasn’t the least bit concerned about me or anyone else!
They are central to the image and framed by the tree but the gulls admiring the view towards the low afternoon sun across the lake are not a big enough in this shot to argue that they were the main feature of my focus – but they were to begin with! Without a longer lens than that provided by my iPhone I had no choice but to consider the composition of the wider scene – but that’s OK because I like the tree as well.
This evening landscape at the end of my walk this week in Penclawdd on the North Gower coast was not really very late in the day – just after 4pm. The days seem so short at this time of day, but I must try to remember those further north who, if you go far enough north, see no real sunlight at all through the day. I cannot imagine what that is like.
The sounds of this walk include many of the activities of the place, both man-made and natural. It was good to find myself hidden from the traffic and industry so easily by such a low lying shield of land as I walked at the edge of the salt marsh.
Enjoy the sounds along with selected images from my walk below.
Penclawdd Walk Soundscape
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.
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.
Heading back to Blackpill in Swansea Bay on my walk this week with the Swansea Health and Wellbeing Walk I looked out across the bay from time to time and enjoyed the colours in the sea and sky. The weather being good and Autumn not being too far advance at that time, there were still many green leaves on the trees and the sunlight shining through them created some beautiful overlapping patterns.
My walk this week at Port Eynon with the Taste of Gower walkers revealed some smiling faces . . . or perhaps I should say stony faces!
Looking directly into the light on from the beach at Port Eynon produced a smile on my own face. We are told not to face into the sun when taking photos because the light will be behind the subject and so they will appear as a silhouette. But if the subject is the light itself and the effect of being dazzled by it, then go for it (not directly at the the sun of course – that can be dangerous).
Still at The Helix to see The Kelpies on my walk this week, I have been looking at some details of these metal equine structures in the Scottish landscape. The setting sun was good to me!
