puddleshark

By the heath, there is a wood of oaks and silver birches. Only a small wood, but the path through it loops and winds so extravagantly that following it is like walking a mizmaze, a ceremonial path that turns and twists around, until you lose all sense of progress or direction, and the point is simply to be walking, in this place, at this moment.

( Winter woods & heath )

Bright sunshine, after a night of heavy rain, and in the woods the ghost of last night's rain still dripping from the branches.

( Mist & sunlight in the woods )

I found my way into Chetterwood on this, my third attempt. And, perhaps more importantly, I also found my way out again. Chetterwood rewarded my patience with sunlight & bright beech leaves.

( Third time is the charm )

Not wanting to get lost - Horner Wood is one of the largest oak woods in England - I followed a well-waymarked circular walk.

( Can't see the wood for the trees )

Tarr Steps, a clapper bridge, thought to be medieval in origin.

A clapper bridge is an ancient form of bridge found on the moors of the English West Country... and in other upland areas of the United Kingdom. It is formed by large flat slabs of stone, often granite or schist. These can be supported on stone piers across rivers, or rest on the banks of streams.

Although often credited with prehistoric origin, most were erected in medieval times, and some in later centuries. They are often situated close to a ford where carts could cross. According to the Dartmoor National Park, the word 'clapper' derives ultimately from an Anglo-Saxon word, cleaca, meaning 'bridging the stepping stones'; the Oxford English Dictionary gives the intermediate Medieval Latin form clapus, claperius, "of Gaulish origin", with an initial meaning of "a pile of stones".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapper_bridge

( Many pictures )

After yesterday's storm, a beautiful October day today. Blue sky and stately white clouds. The wind still blowing strong and cold up on the downs, but it was perfect weather for walking in the shelter of the woods. ( Lost again, but not very )

In the July woods: sunlight & pleasant shade, and silence.

( Read more... )

I have been away, over the border in Devon for a few days, staying on Exmoor. The hills are higher and wider and wilder in Devon, and the valleys and the streams rockier. One day I followed the Coleridge Way long distance footpath from Rockford to Watersmeet.

( An improbable number of pictures )

( A path through the bracken in the rain )

Wild Garlic path, near Dorsetshire Gap 1

A walk to the Dorsetshire Gap, where all the ancient tracks meet, along wild garlic paths.

( A green thought in a green shade )

Too hazy a day for landscape photography, so I followed the secretive path through the coppice woods at the foot of the Purbeck Hills.
( Greenery )

Set off to follow the path through the oak woods at B. in the rain. Only a gentle rain at first, not cold. Not much light, this morning, but still the oaks and the birches bright with new leaves, and the woods full of the song of robins, blackbirds and thrushes.

( Come and get rained on )

April is here, and suddenly, overnight, the trees are breaking into leaf. Followed the twisty paths through Garston Woods nature reserve. The woods full of birdsong. On the woodland floor, everything frantically in flower, catching those precious few weeks of spring sunlight before the leaves close out the light: Lesser Celandines, Primroses, Wood Anemones, and even a few early Bluebells.

( Read more... )

A walk through the beech woods on Vernditch Chase on a cold November morning. I had hoped for sunlit woods, but though the sun glared whitely through the clouds, the clouds refused to take the hint and move aside.

( Along the paths with the leaves falling )

A walk around the RSPB nature reserve at Swell Wood, with the rain pattering down. Followed the Scarp Loop, an up-and-down path through the woods on the side of a ridge overlooking the Levels.

( Read more... )

The Met Office says the temperature might get up above 30 degrees C here later today. A day to hide from the sun. So I took the shaded path through the woods at B., in search of Silver-washed Fritillary butterflies.

In the July woods, the bracken head high. The air warm and still. Silent save for the drone of flies, the fluttering of chaffinches taking dust-baths in places where the path has dried.

( Read more... )

Silver-studded Blue (Plebejus argus).

Still a cold, fresh June. The heather is not yet in flower on the heath, but there are tiny Silver-studded Blue butterflies on the wing.

( Wrens singing, hoverflies humming )

( Intoxication )

It's bluebell season, almost.

( Long rambling post with many pictures... )

Sunshine and blustery wind. Took a walk through the woods at N. The oaks not yet in leaf, but everywhere a distant fuzz of bright April green, as the hazel and birch understorey bursts into leaf. Ferns unfurling. Robins, chiffchaffs & wrens singing, and loudest of all (ear defenders required) the song thrushes.

( Put on your wellington boots before progressing any further )

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Entries tagged with woods

Solstice Woods

November Woods

Chetterwood

Horner Wood

Tarr Steps, Exmoor

Ackling Dyke & the art of getting lost

July woods

Watersmeet

The woods in the rain

To the Dorsetshire Gap

In April

April Woods

Garston Woods in April

Vernditch Chase

Swell Wood in the rain

July Woods

By woods, marsh & heath

Bluebell Woods

Milton Park Wood to Whatcombe

April woods

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