How many times have you come across a scene and wished you had a camera to record the moment? A week or two ago I stumbled across just such a scene, very local to me, on a detour home from dropping my daughter at school, but this time I had a camera!
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The shafts of early autumn light pierced the tight canopy of reluctant leaves, illuminating a perfect path to the woodland floor through lingering remnants of morning mist. But for the whisper of morning traffic on the road a hundred yards behind, I could have been one hundred miles or one hundred years from civilization that morning. After attempting to capture the un-capturable vista, I moved on quietly through the trees.
Before long the drone of the road was lost amidst the chorus of rustling from high above, the creak of tired limbs and the calls of the residents. One Jay in particular made his presence heard. As it flew ahead through paths of light pioneered by dawn, the azure flashed on its wing, like a memory of a blue bell, long since disappeared from the carpet of woodland flora.
Emerging at the far side, despite having been abandoned by the Jay, I wasn't left wanting for colour! As if in a bid to burn off the last of the clinging haze, the bracken had ignited, flames of yellow and rusty red trying to upstage the sun. The trees looked down enviously, out of fashion, some way behind the latest seasonal colours, for now.
The flowers were not to be outdone, even if they were now vastly outnumbered - at a distinct seasonal disadvantage, the Devils-bit Scabious had aimed for subtlety and nailed it. In a close cropped patch, flanked by the fledgling stream they made their stand, purple amongst the fading green of the retiring summer grasses.
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Welcome to my Blog.
Welcome also to my 'local patch', or one of them, Coyney Woods. I'll post up something describing it a bit less abstractly in the not too distant future.
It really is a hidden gem, surrounded as it is by residential and commercial properties, hiding a history of its own with foundations of an old structure, the mark of former ground works and remnants of refuse piles in the depths. Not to mention the history the trees themselves are evidence of - the wood was previously coppiced, now long since abandoned but immediately obvious if inspected with a trained eye. Or an untrained one: one of the roads now bordering it is called Coppice Grove, a bit of a hint!
I've introduced myself in one of the pages on the blog (links above), so I won't do it again here but please feel free to have a look. I hope this blog proves to be interesting and hopefully also informative.
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