A Tale of Two Woodlands
The nights are drawing in here in the UK and it's only a few weeks until our archaic practice of Turning The Clocks Back™ kicks in, killing off any chance of daylight photowalks in the evening until the end of winter. As such, I've endeavoured to get out with the camera after work a couple of times this week while I still can.
I'm still struggling on the fitness front, so I've been limited to shortish walks in the available time and just sticking to the Z8 kit which is currently not too heavy to carry along with a tripod.
First up was a trip to Birkacre at the beginning of the week.
As I walked the path that runs alongside the lodge, I saw a large fish, possibly two feet in length, leap out of the lodge right in front of me, before disappearing back into the dark waters. I've no idea what kind of fish it was, my knowledge on this subject is even more lacking than what I know about birds, but it repeated this act three times as I stood there slack jawed looking at it, completely forgetting the action oriented camera I had slung around my neck. Eventually I did realise and got myself ready to catch any further action, but none was forthcoming. However, this did get me thinking that a wander up to the weir to look for activity on fish ladder might be worthwhile. Whether this turned out to be the case or not will be revealed later in the story, adding an element of suspense to the tale.
And so, with no leaping fish shot in the bag, I shifted my focus to the trees, particularly the scene looking down the length of the Yarrow that I photographed in the fog on the previous weekend. There was no fog on this occasion, but I think it still made an interesting shot.
I slowly worked my way past the lodge, shooting a number of disappointing images as I went, eventually arriving at the weir. There's still plenty of water cascading over the stony barrier, crashing on the rocks below, but it was noticeably slower than it had been on previous occasions. This was taken shortly before sunset and despite the sky being relatively clear to the East, the ever present spectre of Irish Sea Permafog™ was lurking to the West, sapping the weak light of colour and vibrance as the sun sank towards the horizon.
The fish ladder was flowing nicely and makes a pleasant subject along with the foliage that surrounds it, although the draught from the flowing water causes the branches to continually move around, which is problematic for long exposures without manually stacking different exposure times in Affinity/Photoshop/etc. I hung around for a while, but saw no sign of any aquatic creatures making use of the facility during that time.
My next outing was in the middle of the week. The weather forecast predicted little wind and broken clouds, in other words decent conditions for woodland photography, so the big question was which woods to head for, Brinscall, Duxbury or Birkacre? Duxbury and Birkacre can be a little busy for wandering around in the evenings talking to yourself while carrying a camera and tripod, so I decided to head for Brinscall, with the added bonus of fish and chips afterwards from the little village chippy just around the corner from the woods (in truth, this was probably the main factor in my decision as there's a brief window of time when sunset and the closing time of this chippy overlap, so it's a nice treat for a short while at either end of winter).
When I reached the woods, I was disappointed to see reality had replaced the broken cloud of the forecast with a heavy overcast sky, leading to very low light levels under the canopy and little to no directional light. Still, I persevered for around 90 minutes until sunset approached. Annoyingly, as I left the woods, the clouds broke and a pleasant sunset presented itself, although I passed no good vantage points on the drive back home to take advantage of this, so although it looked very nice, it's lost to posterity.
The recent storms seem to have brought down a lot of trees in the woods, including this unfortunate specimen.
I've photographed this scene a few times, but I think this is one of the more effective variants I've captured. In previous versions I've been looking more along the line of the overgrown track (this follows the line of the wall seen here at the bottom of the frame), but on this occasion I've looked diagonally across the long lost track which emphasises the effect of branches reaching across it.
This shot is from virtually the same spot, but with the camera rotated 90 degrees to the left.
Here I've move a little way up the slope that runs along the East side of the track where there is this well established group of imposing trees. The first signs of autumn are just starting to appear in the canopy, so hopefully I'll be able to return here in a couple of weeks to record the change that should have occurred by then. Fingers crossed we don't get hit by another storm in the meantime that strips the trees of their leaves.
This is looking back down the slope from where the previous image was taken.
