Wyre Forest (14/03/17)

Being a weekday, not a school holiday, and still well away from the busy season, we’d decided to set aside our misanthropic tendencies and make our starting point the visitor centre. It was busier than we’d have anticipated, but only around the centre facilities; 200 yards into the forest and we were on our own. With skies more overcast than had been forecast, the birds seemed to be keeping a low profile and we were able to devote more of our attention to avoiding the still considerable amounts of mud underfoot; it’s a particular speciality of the Wyre Forest is mud.

There was, eventually, a lightening of the cloud cover, which roughly coincided with the thinning out of the trees; we became aware of a steady increase in both the amount of movement and the level of noise; woodland and hedgerow staples mostly on the day, although there is always the hope and possibility of something a little more exotic – a lesser spotted woodpecker perhaps, maybe even a goshawk. Not today, though.

A stone bridge spanning the route of the former railway line provides an excellent vantage point at those times when there is bird activity in the vicinity of the reserve’s premises at Lodge Hill Farm. On this occasion the movement in the trees turned out to be a pair of bullfinches; the pair quickly became three as a second female arrived on the scene, before two further arrivals swelled the numbers to five (two males/three females).

The male’s breast colouring was vivid even by bullfinch standards. Unfortunately, I’d upped the ISO setting on the camera – to allow for shooting at decent shutter speeds inside the woods – and then neglected to turn it back down; hence the over-exposure, particularly of the bright background.

The one sustained spell of warm sun, early in the afternoon, was sufficient to tempt out a female adder to bask among the leaf litter. As is often the case, there was no perfect unobstructed shot and we wanted to maintain a proper distance to avoid causing any disturbance to the adder.

There will hopefully be opportunities over the next few weeks to spot a few more, although nothing is guaranteed with something so elusive and sensitive to movement. Once those few weeks have passed and the undergrowth begins to seriously thicken out, the adders – along with the grass snakes which are also present – will become much more concealed and difficult to pick out.

When the adders decide to lie amongst the remnants of the previous year’s bracken, the similarities between their markings and the patterns of the dead undergrowth can make them very tricky to spot – particularly the females!

There isn’t one in the picture to the left, by the way – it’s just bracken.

Wood ants were already becoming active, developing existing nests and starting new ones. They obviously find conditions very much to their liking and anyone intending to take a break sitting on the ground needs to do a bit of reconnaissance before settling down. We’ve seen adders lying on top of some of the smaller ant nests; apparently they like the warmth generated by the activity in the nest and the ants don’t seem to bother them.

 

 

One picture, twice…

Following a muddy path under trees showing just the first signs of new growth, we came across this confluence of minor river and tributary. Tributary, in this part of the forest, can be a euphemism for just about any gully running with water – sometimes their intended use is as a path rather than a watercourse. In this case, the stream joining from the left is always just that – a stream.

None of which actually matters that much; what had really caught our attention was the rather odd light as the path dropped down towards the level of the water. The sun, hitherto hidden by a steep bank, came into view as we rounded a corner, casting a late afternoon, watery yellow glow. The effect was amplified by flickering reflections from the surface of the water, itself running the yellowy brown it often takes from the heavy clay soils of the area. A single, still frame does inadequate justice to the properties of the light, obviously captures none of the movement, and yet somehow (we’ve been here before) turns out okay. Inaccurate, maybe, but okay…

The same picture, photoshopped into monochrome, makes the day look considerably colder, more gloomy, and even less like the scene as I recall it. Then again, what is more subjective than memory?…

Not always the case, but the pictures – particularly the top one – benefit from being ‘clicked’ and expanded.

Shropshire snow: all too brief…

The forecast suggested the possibility of snow across the higher ground to the west, but also that the roads would probably be sufficiently clear to allow access to the hills. In the event, the journey was untroubled and, other than a dusting across the flanks of The Clees, by the time we saw the first evidence of white tops we were only couple of miles out from Church Stretton.

In anticipation of rain at some point, we decided to put on waterproof overtrousers from the start: bulky, cumbersome, restrictive; but windproof and very warm. We gambled on the route via Light Spout waterfall being a good bet for quickly getting clear of the crowds gathering in the car park at the foot of the hills, and it turned out to be even quieter than we’d anticipated. Climbing the rocky steps adjacent to the fall was a little tricky, with many of the rocks smeared with a mixture of ice and streaming water. However, it was manageable: descending that way would have been much more of a problem.

Looking towards The Clees from Long Mynd.

From the top of the waterfall the path follows the route of Light Spout Hollow and eventually intersects with The Shropshire Way, which then follows the spine of the ridge all the way to its high point at Pole Bank. There was a covering of snow for most of the route, with a few light drifts in places, but not sufficient to cover the heather and other ground vegetation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most substantial areas of snow were in the areas around Pole Bank itself. We even saw someone using a pair of cross-country skis, which was probably overkill at the time, and certainly would have been as the day progressed.

The road adjacent to Pole Bank cottage

Reasonable, if short-lived, snow covering

Sadly, by the time we were retracing our steps a couple of hours later, the snow was already receding quite rapidly along the path; probably a consequence of residual warmth in the ground, combined with the passage of boots. Looking further to the north and west, we could see what looked like the evidence of heavier falls on the Arenigs and Berwyns…

Somewhat closer, a storm was gathering over Corndon Hill, although its effects – if there were any, other than a darkened sky – eventually passed to the west of us…

 The tracks below would, I’m guessing, have been made by a rabbit…

Caramac remembered…

The Wyre Forest can be a muddy place at any time of year: the actual forest, that is, not Wyre Forest as in “a local government district in Worcestershire, England, covering the towns of Kidderminster, Stourport-on-Severn and Bewdley, and several civil parishes and their villages”. Confusingly, not all of the Wyre Forest is in Wyre Forest; some of it is in Shropshire.

We’ve just come out of an unseasonably dry spell and such rain as we’ve had since new year has been neither exceptional nor particularly sustained; the forest itself is no more than 10 or 11 miles due west of us, but frequently seems to have caught disproportionately more rainfall. There are some of the characteristics present which give rise to the temperate rain forests found in more westerly parts of the UK – steeply sided gullies for instance – but I haven’t found anything online to suggest that the Wyre Forest meets the definition. What is a fact is that the preponderance of heavy clay soils means slow drainage and a lot of water retention at, or near, the surface; paths remain wet and slippery long after they would have dried out elsewhere. At times progress can be, to put it mildly, inelegant.

Standing on the bridge spanning the Dowles Brook adjacent to Knowles Mill, the water – which usually runs sufficiently clear for dippers to gather food – was the colour of something I couldn’t quite place: an indeterminate mix of cream, yellow and brown; strangely familiar. And then I did remember – Caramac! This prompted one of those slightly surreal passages we all seem to experience, now and again, when out walking – mind slightly detached, contemplating random subjects entirely unconnected with either the day or the surroundings. Admittedly, “Can you still get Caramac” is a pretty bizarre question to fire randomly at somebody with nothing in the way of a preamble: “Eh?” was the elicited response; that and a look skilfully blending sympathy with disdain.

And then, for reasons even I find difficult to understand, I became preoccupied with the fact that I couldn’t remember whether I’d actually liked Caramac; and then remembering seemed to matter, to the point where failing memory replaced Caramac as the fixation. As a consequence, there is, ironically, a whole section of the walk I can barely recollect. And this is supposed to be relaxing and therapeutic.

The day began with bands of dense mist lying in the hollows: indeed, by the time the last of it had dissipated, the afternoon gloom was already beginning to gather. There was plenty of bird activity, as there often is, but mostly seen in silhouette. Over the course of the next few weeks we might, if lucky, catch sight of a lesser spotted woodpecker or, if luckier still, a goshawk; both varieties are resident in the forest. Sometime in early spring, the pied flycatchers will hopefully return to the nesting area set aside for them and the basking adders will sun themselves within sight of the paths, before the vegetation regenerates and mostly hides them from sight.

A visit to this web page allows access to a nice collection of photographs…

Wyre Forest Study Group

For anyone visiting, my advice would be to avoid the Callow Hill visitor centre (and the adjacent Go-Ape), certainly during holiday periods and at weekends throughout most of the year. Follow the B4199 from Bewdley, make your start from Earnswood or Button Oak and work your way roughly due south towards Dowles Brook and the path which follows the route of the old railway branch to Cleobury and Tenbury Wells. You’ll meet far fewer people and most likely spot much more wildlife.

Addendum: By way of an interesting coincidence, Chris Townsend has just published, on his blog, a list of some of his favourite outdoor books of 2016. One of those on the list is The Rainforests of Britain and Ireland: A Traveller’s Guide, by Clifton Bain. Chris’s complete list can be found here.

Footnote: the product illustrated below is apparently still available for purchase…

 

Pictures taken with a smartphone

I might be about to buy a new compact camera: I have a venerable but ageing Panasonic Lumix – an item seemingly so bombproof it will probably outlive me. But, like many things of a certain age, its performance is limited and – powered, as it is, by AA batteries – prone to running out of steam just when you might need it. It strikes me that, apart from the battery-powered bit, I could just as easily be describing bits of my anatomy here.

Because of a preference for binoculars slung around my neck, as opposed to a camera, I’m often caught napping when an opportunity – particularly for a wildlife shot – presents itself. The Panasonic dates back to long before the days of superzoom compacts, and the bridge camera, which I also sometimes carry, is invariably in the rucksack. Birds and other animals will rarely sit patiently while you take off a pack, retrieve a camera, zoom, focus, generally faff… Although, strangely, it seems they will often hang around until you’re nearly ready before making off.

So, a pocket-sized camera seems like the answer. My son has a fairly recent Panasonic compact, with a 30X zoom, and gets some very good results; although he has to keep it very steady when shooting at anything over 20X.

In the interim, I’ve been trying to take the occasional shot with a camera phone, just by way of experimentation and in the knowledge that the camera on the phone I have is generally described as “disappointing” by reviewers. Some of the results are below and I was surprised at how atmospheric some of them seemed to have turned out. However – atmospheric or otherwise – the one thing they all have in common is that the colours and lighting bear little resemblance to what they were actually like on the day.

The pictures below, mostly give the impression of gathering gloom and fading light: in fact they were all taken at just gone 1 pm on a fairly bright winter’s day, with broken cloud and sunshine. Even the lightest of them – the bottom one – significantly understates how light it was in reality. The camera might not lie, but it can be pretty economical with the truth…         

All pictures were taken from the eastern side of Kinver Edge, Staffordshire, looking          roughly due east. The higher ground in the distance is the Clent Hills, Worcestershire.

The phone is (according to the box) a Sony Xperia M4 Aqua and the camera sensor is 13 megapixels – more pixels than the one on my too-heavy-to-take-on-a-walk Sony DSLR, although that doesn’t necessarily mean a bigger sensor, apparently. It’s produced some quite nice pictures – just not quite the ones I thought I was taking.

The colours of autumn…

This was always intended to be mostly pictures, few words, but…

When you look out from an upstairs window and see firstly this…

Quickly followed by this…

And then this…

You do begin to wonder if you’re living in the real life version of Independence Day

Other than that, it’s been more about the familiar greens, browns and golds…

5 pictures above: Wyre Forest Country Park – early November 2016; the lower shot is of Dowles Brook and Knowles Mill, taken through the trees.

2 pictures above: Malvern Hills, looking west – added 19th November 2016

The sunset quickly lost its fire and faded as the sun dropped towards the horizon…

 

* None of these shots has been colour enhanced or ‘Photoshopped’ in any way, other than some slight cropping. They are exactly as the camera sensor recorded them; nature needs no help from me.

 

There’s some corner of a highland field…

Just past Whitewell, returning from Glen Einich, I paused to look back towards Braeriach, take a couple of photographs and noticed an item of equipment parked in the corner of the field. I use the catch-all term “item of equipment” to allow some latitude for my lack of knowledge in these matters; although I think this is probably a tractor and that’s as specific as I’m prepared to be.

That said, I do know that there’s a wealth of knowledge out there among the outdoor community. My thing is railways – even old, long disused stretches of the former network, trying to picture how things might have been in their heyday; or the dedicated freight loops where a couple of trains a week fight through the buddleia en route to some surviving remnant of a quarry or colliery. We all have our little idiosyncrasies…

Anyway, all of that aside, zooming in revealed this…

Judging from the tyres, it might still be in use, although the front ones seem to have sunk a little, and the more you zoom the more blemishes are revealed. If its working life is done, it’s got a splendid place to spend its retirement.