Glendalough - Now and Then

Glenalough Upper Lake. January 2015

Every now and then we all do things that appear a bit harebrained and as a photographer, it seems to happen with slightly more regularity. It sounded like a good idea at the time but seeing as the previous visit to Glendalough in the Wicklow mountains, back in September had been so magical, the suggestion by my photographer friend of making a return visit for another shoot as I passed through on my way to West Cork yesterday morning, was not unwelcome. So I said yes without a second thought. Actually, the second thought was that there was an excellent establishment there providing good hearty breakfasts - so why not?! Not only that, a couple of days previous, another photographer friend had mailed me the link to a fascinating set of archive photographs taken in 1913, of places in Ireland. Unusually, these pictures were in colour and had been taken by two French women, Marguerite Mespoulet and Madeleine Mignon-Alba, and included two views of Glendalough. An ideal opportunity for a 'now and then' shot if ever there was one.

As before, I had sailed into Dublin on the 'graveyard' crossing, due to arrive into port at 6am. However,  despite the unusually mild temperature of 13 degrees, indicated on my night-time drive to the ferry it was the high winds that were of more concern. With force 9-10 forecast, I knew I was in for a bumpy ride, and with stabilisers duly deployed, the boat made a safe but slightly slower crossing of the Irish Sea. Disembarking at 6.30 am, it was still dark as I set off, the location programmed into my sat nav - yes I am finally beginning to trust these gadgets but I don't know why. Knowing that it would want to take me on an exit route from the port which has a toll, I thought I would take a slightly different route to avoid this unnecessary inconvenience, trusting that the sat-nav would recalculate the route to take me out on the east side of the city. Instead, and to my surprise, it took me out west, ultimately taking me right over the winding Wicklow mountains in the dark. Now I know why I never trusted these gadgets - give me a real map any day!

By now, the 13 degrees of the night before was reading 3 degrees with the wind still buffeting the car as I negotiated my way around the debris fallen from the trees. I was pleased when finally I emerged from the wooded area onto the open mountain road but this brought new hazards. Potential ice, maybe the odd animal and the unpredictable humps and bumps in the road surface, sending the contents of the car, up into the air. I quickly questioned the wisdom of the sat nav - Why this way? With the openness of the landscape, it was possible to see way ahead, and in the distance I could see the red glow of some tail lights - I wondered which other mad soul might be up there at this dark hour in the morning? Bit by bit, I gained on the other vehicle, until, a few miles from my final destination I had caught up, realising it was my friend - the other equally harebrained photographer. With both of us relieved to have made it to Glendalough safely, we opted to go for an early breakfast to wait for the dawn - which, unlike our previous visit, this time arrived unspectacularly without any sunshine. We made our pot of tea last, glad to be out of the biting wind but all of sudden, the sun burst though. Cue cameras!

We wrapped up against the elements, slung our kit over our shoulders and set off on a walk to the Upper Lake, where we had experienced the magical conditions back in September.

Remember this?...

Glendalough Upper Lake. September 2014

Despite our frozen fingers, we had gone to take photographs and although our results yesterday showed the winter colours, they bore no resemblance to the beauty of the colours from that still morning - but this is the joy of being a photographer, recording the 'now and then'.
On the subject of now and then, I wasn't to forget the other reason for my visit - to find the location that those two French ladies had used, back 100 years ago.

Then - Glendalough Round Tower 1913

Now - Glendalough Round Tower 2015

Finding the first spot wasn't too difficult (I was doing this from memory as I hadn't printed off a reference copy of the old photograph) Not much changed apart from a few gravestones missing and the sculpture of the greenery being slightly transformed.

The second spot, I knew was going to be a different story. I remembered there were many more trees now than there were then. I did my best but the trees obscured much of the cathedral and, due to more trees, we couldn't move any further back or up on the far bank of the river which ran between the location and the subject, and which would have provided us with the open view of this early Medieval monastic settlement.

Now - Glendalough Round Tower and Cathedral - 2015

Then - Glendalough Round Tower and Cathedral - 1913

Mission accomplished, and with the prospect of four hour drive to West Cork ahead of me, we set off on our separate ways, vowing that we would choose a nice warm summer day for the next now and then visit to Glendalough.



Thanks to my friend Neil for the link to the photographs, An t-Oileán the blogger who posted the images, and Ray, my equally harebrained photographer friend.

Bluebell Time

When my old mum moved to live in the same town as us six years ago, I made a promise that each year when the bluebells were in bloom in a local wood, I would take her to see them. Today was that day for the annual visit, some three weeks earlier than the visit last year but then how different the Springs have been. Mind you, isn't that the joy of nature, the quirks and variations that give us all something to note in our mind's diary or give us something to talk about.

However, the show of bluebells, whenever they happen, is always something to talk about, and as for the scent of these Spring wonders - you just have to be there to take it in.

Stunning!

All Too Much

It was all too much!
Not for me - I was enjoying every sun-drenched-Saturday-morning-moment of it.
No, sadly it was too much for my trusty photographer's assistant. Approaching thirteen years old now, she has noticeably slowed down, and particularly so since October when she started to tell us when she had had enough, rather than us calling time on the walks.
It is sad, as having such a wonderful companion for both indoors and particularly outdoors, has provided opportunities to explore our locality in depth and to develop a love and appreciation of the nature and wildlife in special places.

No more so than this particular corner of North Essex, where the gentle undulations of this cosy countryside meet the flat fens of Cambridgeshire. From this part of the Icknield Way, it is possible to see as far as Ely on a clear day.
Despite the sunshine on Saturday, the light was only good enough to pick out features in Cambridge and thereabouts, with the dishes of the Mullard Observatory highlighted in the distant landscape.

Many hours have I sat on the edges of the fields, surrounded by deer-filled woodland, and many times have I blogged and more recently, tweeted about the seasonal changes which I observe here. For me the place and the natural progress of the year are always magical.
As I sat quietly on Saturday, I listened to a whole range of bird song - blue tits, great tits, long-tailed tits - I even thought I heard the 'little bit of bread' of the yellow hammer but the 'no cheese' seemed to be absent. Woodpeckers drummed and crows cawed - this wonderful symphony of birdsong broken only by the unwelcome roar of the big metal birds moving in and out of the nearby busy airport.
These roaring interludes though, were the perfect time to look more closely around me, spotting the first tiny flashes of glorious blue beaming up from the speedwell.

Despite the sunshine, it was still very much a 'wellie-walk' with mutt up to her usual bubble-patting in the puddles, the swirling patterns of disturbed silt highlighted in her wake.

Upon reaching the old farm bath houses (and boy, could mutt have done with the use of one by this stage!), the sun had reached its apex. The carpet of ageing snowdrops still adding a glorious intensity to the light around the derelict buildings. Rare of late, the shafts of sunlight reached in through the broken windows, the frames casting crisp dark shadows on the walls.

On the window sill, the relics of a once useful facility had morphed into a snail-like reminder of the change of pace in this wooded corner of the farm yard.

Who knows what tales the peeling walls could tell if only they could speak?

And as for my favourite resident farm yard ladies, well, a hello had to be made to them too before we set off on the return leg of this gentle three-hour stroll in the sunny countryside, arriving back home just in time for our lunch.

Mutt took to her bed as soon as we arrived home, and slept for hours. Not unusual, except when she did emerge from her sunny sleeping place, it was clear that her front right leg was giving her trouble again. I say again, as a similar action was made after a long walk during our visit to the Cotswolds a couple of weeks back. On that occasion though, she was up and bouncy by the next morning. Sadly, we are now into day three of hop-along-mutt and clearly recovery is going to take much longer now that she is mature in years - and at nearly 90 years old in our terms, it is hardly surprising!

I would like my assistant to be able to come along with me for a good while yet as we have shared many happy hours together, exploring the the nooks and crannies of this, very definitely not TOWIE corner of the county.
For now though it will have to be just a small amble around the block for the fresh air, and it certainly isn't too much for us to give her lots of rest and TLC.


Post script 28.2.14

After a few days of her making no fuss, we eventually got to the reason for mutts lameness...

This thorn had gone straight in, leaving no obvious mark.
Despite checking her pads on several occasions it was only the swelling and weeping that eventually alerted us to the problem.

Fingers crossed now that she is on the mend.

Victim of the Storms

For one reason or another I hadn't taken mutt for a walk in our local park since Thursday last week, and so I had quite a surprise when I set foot through the gate again yesterday. Between the two visits, we had had yet another of the 'confused' Gulf Stream storms, this one striking during the early hours of Saturday morning.
Where once a majestic beech tree had stood guard over the emerging Lords and Ladies around its base, there was instead a wind-cleared vista over scraped bare earth.
The Peyps Walk tree had become a victim of the storms.

The clear-up process was well under way by yesterday but it was obvious there was more to why this naturally shallow-rooted beech had succumbed.

It wouldn't take a genius to work out that the tree had been suffering with disease, and having chatted to the estate workers, it appears this towering 100 year-old had already been given the green spot of condemnation. Sad as it is, these things happen when specimens get to the end of their life. However, even during the lying in state, it was able to put on one last unusual display.

Each severed limb revealed a beautiful design, as if it had been tattooed, and with every one different.
Ink blot interpretation of these disease stains was about to come into play.

Could it be a pansy?... A butterfly?...

...wait a minute, is this possibly the face of a bulldog?

...and this, a border collie pup?

Whatever your interpretation, what I actually see is a changing landscape and the prospect of a new sapling filling the gap.

It isn't always bad.

Winter Murmurings

For the first time in days, the afternoon had been sunny, and for the first time in weeks, that coincided with a time when I was able to shoot off to a local RSPB reserve at Fen Drayton Lakes a winter home to starlings.

Over the past few years, I have tried to get there whenever I can during the murmuration season, some years being more successful than others. So it was with reserve that I took to the road late this afternoon in the hope I might just catch this spectacle. As I drove, I feared I might just be too late, knowing that once the starlings are down for the night, they really are down. I was a little worried when I saw a small swirling mass already busy in the sky when I arrived at the lakes. Would I have time to get parked up and get my camera out before it would all be over?

To be fair, it is getting quite late in the season for the best of shows, and so to see anything would be a bonus.
Then way over in the distance, beyond the bank of trees, they were spotted. A huge swirling mass of starlings on the horizon and it was clear they weren't going to move in our direction and fly directly over us, as I have experienced there in the past.

No sooner had I trained my lens on them and - bam! They were down. That was it.

So, I was left with the beauty of the sunset. A feint single shaft of sunlight shooting up into the sky as the colours developed. Just so beautiful.

And, with a little patience there is usually an encore, and I wasn't disappointed. Around 15 minutes later, the sounds of the rooks and crows began to get louder and before long, the sky was full of the corvid homecomers. For around fifteen minutes, the sound of these birds masked the sound of the traffic rumbling along the nearby A14, as they all plummeted down and vanished into the darkness of the trees to the east of me.

And now I was just left with the beauty of the blue night sky as it blanketed the warmth of the sunset.

Stunning.

Day 18 - August Challenge

Challenge - "Weeping Willow"

Sugested by - Ian via Facebook

Today I have gone for the traditional picture postcard look. After all, weeping willows are part of the scene in the traditional English countryside, and where could be more traditional-feeling than Byron's Pool in Grantchester, on a summer Sunday. Families were quietly fishing around the waters edge this evening where, apparently Lord Byron would swim. This fact is said to have been written about by Rupert Brooke, the Edwardian poet, who, many years later, lived in the near-by Old Vicarage.

Unfortunately for me, the sunshine, which had earlier been playing through the weeping branches of the tree, decided to curtail its appearance as I began to photograph at the pool. Unlike the picture postcards of yesteryear, I have refrained from hand tinting the sky, even though Photoshop would be the perfect tool. I prefer to leave as-is as much as possible. One day I will return to capture the image with a perfect sky, but for today, I'm afraid I will have to present a less than perfect white sky.

The grab shot

My thanks to:

Ian for the suggestion

Tomorrow, Day 19

"Love"

Day 15 - August Challenge

Challenge - "15th please in honour of my boy Toby who will be 12 on that day. I think a theme of possibilities or
                      potential suits that age. Hope thats not too tough"

Suggested by - Sharon via FaceBook

Simply...

"A Hhhhhh-appy Birthday to Toby!"

(Now I'm showing my age!! click here)

And, as a birthday treat, I suggest the young man might like running around on ropes as nimbly as a squirrel, at somewhere like this!



The grab shot

My thanks to:
Sharon for the suggestion




Tomorrow, Day 16

"Maze"

Day 2 - August Challenge

Challenge - "Owl"

Suggested by - Ian via Facebook

The suggestion of owl made me smile. One of my all-time favourite birds! So much so, I had amassed a collection of assorted 'wols' during my teenage years, some of which I still have sitting on an attic room shelf. (I always felt that was the right place to have them). I decided that this could be my 'plan C'. That is, resorting to photographing this collection, although I did have a better option 'plan B'.

My determination though, to photograph 'plan A' - a real live owl was paramount, and when I knew of this challenge, I began re-acquainting myself with some of the local owl haunts that I have sadly neglected visiting in recent months. But I was drawing a blank. I asked a friend if I could come and photograph her barn owl that lived on their farm. Again, a similar issue. I believe the bad winter has had something to do with the reduced numbers of owls this year, with many having perished due to lack of food. Even their owl had been rather scarce with appearances, although they said I was welcome to go and sit and wait and see. I did, but with no results.

I knew that an image of a beautiful ghost-like bird, silently skimming the hedgerows during the dusk hours was going to be difficult with such a small mount of preparation, and so I had to re-set my goals. To be fair, just a shot of an owl would fulfil the brief, so, to get that perfect shot would be an amazing bonus. But where was I going to guarantee even seeing an owl?

I was to have two chances to grab the shot - morning or evening, the times when the owls were most likely to be about. The relative 'cheat' option of visiting a zoo or raptor centre was out of the question due to my working commitments, thus 'chance 1' had to be taken.
4.30am this morning, my alarm went off and I drove to a place where we had regularly seen a barn owl. It was a long shot that the owl would oblige. Needless to say, it was a no-show but it didn't matter greatly as it was a beautiful, 17 degrees, sunny morning and I still had 'chance 2'. However, by 9am the weather had taken an about-turn. The sky went black, the heavens opened and the thunder rattled.
It was this weather detail that made my 'bird friend' shake his head.
"What, in this weather?!" was his reply when I told him I must find an owl, and TODAY.
However, he did give me a tip-off.
6.30pm the weather had perked up and I was back on the road to the location of a nest-box where a pair of owls annually take up residence, and I was pretty much guaranteed seeing one, even if it was a face just peeping out of the hole. As I sat and waited, my camera set on a tripod with the remote release, I hoped for a little white face to put in an appearance and thought, in the circumstances, how much more preferable this would be to a picture of a collection of ceramic owls. I then thought about 'plan B' and gave myself half an hour for something to happen, or I would have to leave and go to that alternative location.

After only 15 minutes of waiting, I thought I saw a change in the colour of the darkened doorway-hole to the nest box, which was some considerable distance away and at the extremities of my lens. Were my eyes fooling me after fixing my gaze on such a small target for so long? What had I to lose? I fired off three shots before doing a spot of essential 'chimping'.

I had it! First shot! The rounded white face of the resident barn owl. Yesss!

Ok, so it would win no awards, but it was a real, live owl, and not the scary plastic decoy owl guarding a tucked away veg patch, which would have been 'plan B'. With a feeling of satisfaction and knowing I didn't now need to dash off after half an hour, I afforded myself the luxury of waiting for a better shot.

You guessed it - I didn't get one.

That's the way of wildlife photography, and that is what I love about it - always needing to do better. It's what helps keep us sharp.

So, Ian, after I suggested to you today that I might have to resort to 'plan B' I do hope you're happy with 'plan A'?

The screen grab.

Again my thanks to:

-Ian for the suggestion
-John and Celia for letting me wait hopefully outside their barn
-Roy for the tip-off

-RSPB Fowlmere

Tomorrow, Day 3

"Something decaying"

Sweet Chestnut

It was as a picture from the past.

I happened on this simple covered work area in the corner of the wood, when out exercising mutt the other day. In fact, it was the day of the llama encounter, and I had gone off with my own preferred four-legged walking companion. Looking at the tops of the trees, the tell-tale long creamy-white, bottle-brush-lke flowers told me that this wood consisted almost entirely of sweet chestnuts - a tree I had become familiar with during a working holiday in the area many years ago. This species of tree is prevalent in this corner of 'the garden of England' and comes into flower around this time of year, eventually producing a crop of the winter favourite, the edible sweet chestnut. However, it was another, just as important but less recognised sweet chestnut product that was of interest here.

Armed with just my little G12, I started to take a couple of shots of the set-up, and before I knew it, I was taking shots to tell the whole story. To some, it may be mundane and un-interesting, but to those with a connection to trees, timber or wood products, it probably sets certain senses to alert. To those who think they might find this post boring, I apologise in advance but you never know, you might just find out something you didn't know if you dare to read on!

Sweet Chestnut Castanea sativa is actually a member of the beech family and is not related to the Horse Chestnut.

Here, a lone oak makes a stand.

In this area of Kent /
East Sussex, the trees are grown in coppiced woodlands.

Having grown to the required size, they are cut into sections and cleaned of the bark

Having been stripped...

...and chipped

...they are cleaved and turned into bundles of stakes.

Certainly gives a new meaning to stake and chips!

So, looking familiar yet?

You might just realise that these bundles of stakes are what eventually end up as fencing material. The type of temporary fencing that in the past, was put around disused land. The fences that were strung together by two bands of looped wire. However, today they are often made into trellises, arches or ornate fencing panels. Larger stakes being made into fence posts and in the past, the very large straight sections were also made into hop poles.
(So now the beer connection comes with the stake and chips too!)

The fact that sweet chestnut is used for fencing is purely due to its' properties, as it is well known as being durable and long lasting without the use of preservatives.

However, what fascinated me about this set-up, was that non-industrial artisan production methods were still being used, and whilst time may have mostly left this production method behind in favour of mass production, there was one thing that stayed the same...

...the importance of having the right equipment to do the job!