Category: Nature

Weekly Photo Challenge : Weight(less)

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This is what Ben Huberman says about this weeks photo challenge at The Daily Post,

This week, share a photo of something marked by its weight — or its air of weightlessness. Show us gravity at its most unforgiving, or most generous. Bricks or feathers. A collapsed ruin or a plane taking off. A heavy piece of old furniture or the flying buttresses of a cathedral. Keep in mind that weight doesn’t even have to be physical: emotions and memories can weigh on us (or lift our spirits) at least as much as real objects.

I found this really difficult and couldn’t come up with anything original, but I suppose if wouldn’t be a challenge if it was too easy!
And then this afternoon as I walked the dogs in the cemetery, I listened to birdsong all around me. As well as the small songbirds, there was the call of the jay and I failed to photograph it yet again. Pigeons made their gentle cooing sound, seagulls shrieked and then the crows joined in. There are lots of crows in the graveyard, I’ve always thought them most appropriate. So they reminded me of a possibility, and I headed for the tall, bare trees where they nest.

It’s way too early for any eggs, even in this mild winter, so the nests appear to be weightless, suspended on the most delicate of branches. In just a few months those branches will be full of activity and weighed down with another generation of crows.

A Boxing Day stroll

Posted on Posted in Exeter, Nature, PhotographyTagged , , , , , 30 Comments

It was no good, the clouds would not lift today, so I either had to wallow at home with chocolate or go for some fresh but grey air. The fresh air won and the chocolate wasn’t going anywhere 😉 so a stroll in theTaddiforde Valley that runs along the university campus was the choice.

The campus is very quiet out of term and being Boxing Day the car parks were empty. We headed out from the lowest entrance, just off Prince of Wales road.

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It’s a popular spot with local walkers, and in summer the odd student has been spotted relaxing on the grass.

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Water is present throughout this short walk, the ponds through the valley were created in the 60’s and 70’s to look like natural watercourses, the ponds being fed from the Taddiforde  Brook. There are several varieties of water bird, but they heard Dido and Daisy coming and made themselves scarce.

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The Gunnera have given up for this year, but usually this late in the year they would have totally died back.

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We walk past a small stand of Silver Birch.

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The path meanders gently upwards, it’s a place for slowing down and being mindful.

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Sometimes the water rushes down in narrow gaps and sometimes it stagnates. In spring this area will be alive with tadpoles, frogs, toads and newts. The area is managed well to provide habitats for wildlife.

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The girls would like to know who lives there.

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We’ll cross this little bridge in a moment,

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and look back the way we came.

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Keeping our eyes open for little treasures.

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Grand eucalyptus with leaves draping and bark shedding in harmony. Do you see the tree fern in the background?

 

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The path swoops around, with lots of places for inquisitive dogs to disappear. uni16

The benches are a bit functional, but there are plenty and adequate for dog waiting!

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It looks a bit murky, hope they didn’t jump in.

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There’s some interesting growth.

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I do like a good fungi.

uni17 I don’t know if this is a blue hydrangea losing it’s colour very slowly or a variety that I’ve never seen, but it was a subtle beauty.

We’re going back down towards the first pond now, the wind is gusting quite loudly in the trees, and judging by the bird activity, they’re battening down the hatches in preparation for a storm.

Exeter University is one of the top ten in the country, attracting students from all over the world.The campus and the valley is an arboretum and botanical garden, of some 300 acres, and described by the Independent as ‘sublime’.  There are around 21,000 students in a city with a population of just 125,000, sometimes it feels as if they are taking over. They are certainly contributing to housing shortages, especially affordable ones, and an increase in multiple occupancy properties that are landlord owned. I hope the students appreciate their surroundings and I’d like to see more local people enjoying the grounds. It’s a place where the woods and countryside meets the city, and part of Exeter Green Circle.

I’m sharing my Boxing Day walk with Jo, last Monday she was walking the Algarve hills, I wonder where she’ll be this week.

 

The Hippocratic Plane Tree

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Just behind the research and learning building on the campus of the hospital in Exeter, stands one of the area’s most important trees. Medics there made sure it was protected when the building went up, because it is a Hippocratic Plane tree. If you’ve ever been to Kos, you may have seen a five hundred year old descendant of the original Plane, that stood some 2400 years ago. It was beneath that legendary tree that Hippocrates lectured his students on the art and ethics of medicine.

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There are Hippocratic Planes all around the world, in the grounds of libraries, colleges and medical schools. Trees, including this one, have been propagated by seed and cutting from the one in Kos. How fitting and wonderful, that students here can also sit in the shade of this beautiful tree.
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There is another element to share, because the hospital’s estates team cut limbs from the tree, they were seasoned and used to create this cross that hangs in the chapel.

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This definitely one of England’s sacred trees.

A field of brassica

Posted on Posted in i phoneography, NatureTagged , , , 17 Comments

Today I took the dogs for a stroll around Darts Farm. It’s one of those ‘lifestyle’ type shops these days, but I remember it thirty years ago when it was simple farm shop, in a barn. It still grows and sells vegetables, and the shop sells local fish, meat, bakery and dairy products, for those who can afford to buy it.

They don’t mind you walking around their fields, I’m always surprised how few people actually do, except when the sunflowers are blooming and the maize maze is open to get lost in.Today I walked up this hill, unprepared for the amount of mud and wearing my best and only presentable boots, heyho.
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The weather was cold but bright and many of my iPhone photos are shooting straight into the sun.

The field on the right above was full of greens, ugh! When I was a kid greens were cabbage, cauliflower and Brussel sprouts, when did they get so complicated?

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I still won’t eat any of them, and I can spot the tiniest bit of cauliflower in the spiciest curry!
Strolling over the brow of the hill with the dogs disappearing in and out of the hedge chasing after real or fantasy rabbits, the hills to the east were in view.

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The maize still stood in skeletal rows.
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There were no squeals of delight from children running through, unable to see over the tops of the plants.
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The ground levels out and the iconic Topsham water tower stands across the river Clyst.
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The glow of yellow drew me off the path toward the wetlands.
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Where I could hear but not see geese and ducks, and the soft voices of anglers carried towards me.


Umbelliferous plants still held onto their creamy-white flowers.
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Sunflower remains.
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But the birds have had a real feast for weeks.
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We’ve nearly reached the main road now.

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I turn left at the bottom of the sunflower field.

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and look back at the way I’ve come, and at a field of leeks.
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It’s really only a little stroll, but rather lovely today.
Jo won’t be taking her usual Monday Walk this week, but I think she’d like mine, especially as there are plenty of luscious cakes to be found in Darts cafe.

You can find some more Monday exercise over at Amy’s place, she’s taken us to a rather arty cultural area of Austin, Texas. The hotels are too pricey for me but I’d like a wander there.