My walk this week took me from light to dark in Brynmill Park in Swansea. I had visited the park on many previous occasions and so was interested in capturing some of the details of the place rather than a more open view of its land and waterscape.
It was good to start my short walk in the afternoon sunlight and watch the squirrels gathering their winter stores and the swans and ducks on the dark water of the lake, even though there was the most terrific fight between two of the ducks (not included in the soundscape below).Continue reading→
My walk this week is a short one in two parts with my entrance to Brynmill Park in Swansea being in Winter sunshine and my exit being towards a dark park.
I am familiar with “dark parks” where there is little or no light pollution from human habitation and the stars shine in the most amazing way, but the night skies above Brynmill Park could not be described as being unpolluted by light. However, the park itself was certainly getting dark by the time I was leaving.Continue reading→
I selected a very beautiful deep red rose as my featured image for this post but if you first see the post in an email, you will have to click through to see the image which comes at the end of the selected images for my review of the walk.
The rose itself I found in the orangery which was being restored at the back of the Museum in the Park in Stratford Park, Stroud. I was visiting the museum to see the exhibition of knotted tapestries by Anne Jackson but I also plannedContinue reading→
The park in question on my walk this week is Stratford Park in Stroud, England. I’d driven up there to see a friend’s exhibition of knotted tapestries – Anne Jackson in the Museum in the Park. It was well worth the drive and having spent an hour enjoying the exhibition in detail, I still had time to take a walk in the park.
All the classic features of a British urban/suburban park were thereContinue reading→
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!
This arc of pigeons arranged on the railings at the end of my walk this week in Roath Park, Cardiff, give the appearance of spectators at an event – but what is the event? I am pretty sure there was nothing going on out of our view here, that it is just a natural congregation of birds probably having a bit of siesta in the early afternoon, but your guess is as good as mine. Anyone got any suggestions?
Play the soundscape below and click the first thumbnail of selected images from this week’s posts to watch them in sequence.
Roath Park Soundscape
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Nearing the end of my walk this week and one of the eastern exits to Roath Park in Cardiff, I am struck by the classic pose set by this cormorant. There are many, many birds of many different species in Roath Park but determining the variety of any specific bird is somewhat of a challenge to me. So I think this is a cormorant and the other avian profile in the images below I think is a Yellow Legged Gull in its first year . . . but don’t quote me on it. The swans I know are swans but what variety of swan I could not say.
Not being able to identify many of the creatures, avian or otherwise, or much of the plant life I see around me in any given environment, does not reduce or hamper my enjoyment and appreciation of that environment, either natural or urban. The naming and labelling of things has its advantages when it comes to communication and understanding but for the purposes of StillWalks and my own personal enjoyment of my surroundings and the benefits I get from it, it is not necessary to name everything. Indeed, considering that StillWalks videos have no voiceovers (or music), it is not necessary to name anything! It is only in my blog posts that you will “hear my voice” so to speak.
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Walking round Roath Park lake in Cardiff there were many opportunities to photograph the birds – trouble is they will insist on moving! Fast shutter speeds and quick reflexes will suffice but you still have to take a load of pulse shots to have any hope of freezing there sometimes frenzied motion – particularly when they are fighting over food.
More relaxed are the mothers and their their babies enjoying the natural environment in the centre of a busy city.
I think this is a Kittywake
Feeding Frenzy
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