Last of the summer walks

 

Leaves have been falling since late June, and it's now much more autumnal than summery. This summer has been very difficult for a number of reasons, and although I dislike the winter dark intensely, I can't say I'm sorry to see the back of the last couple of months. 

I'm writing this listening to incessant rain, which doesn't bode well for Cwtch's long walk later but which is very much needed. 

Purdown

Blaise Castle

Collapsed ferns at Snuff Mills

Fishponds Brook

Patchway Brook

The River Trym at Badock's Wood

On the first day of the hosepipe ban here in Bristol, it rained so much the previous night that at Snuff Mills, the River Frome was bursting its banks in one or two places and the weirs were running through their winter repertoire ...

... but - we are told - it would have to rain for 90 days to replenish depleted water stocks.

As I've had to stay close to home, it's been pretty much the usual haunts, although, I did explore the Leap valley in Downend, which is hollowed by the tiny stream that gives it its name and which was new to me ... 

... and the Three Brooks nature reserve in Bradley Stoke, but both lack winding paths alongside the streams that are their arteries, and that are such a feature of walks along the River Frome (which they'll presently flow into).

Dockham ditch flowing under the M4 and about to join Patchway brook

And yes, the needs of nature have to be prioritised in these places, but if you're telling me here be kingfishers, I'd like to have a fighting chance of seeing one.

Talking of which ...

a kingfisher and its fish at Frenchay bridge ... 

Meanwhile, Cwtch and a friendly magpie had fun playing up on Purdown ... 

... and we also had a close encounter with a wren.

Other than that, the fauna we saw up close and personal was dead. 

Death also crossed over into my feather hunting activities. The season is tailing off now, and to date I've ferreted out 14 jay coverts, which matches the number I found last year. Except that last year I also came across a whole dead jay, which made a total of 48 blue coverts, only I don't really count the job lot as there's no joy in finding so many all at once. 

There were a couple of minor synchronicities - a covert found under the same tree as last year, another in the same lane as last year - but I wasn't expecting to find another jay predation (minus the bird this time).

Not all of the feathers were there, but the 34 blue coverts were. Which brings the season's total up to ... 48.
 

But as I said, only the ones found individually are to be celebrated. I'll post a collage of them in my next local walk blog, by which time I'll know if this is the final total.

Meanwhile, I was particularly interested in this covert, from a juvenile jay. Apparently it takes some practice to achieve neat, regular barring.

I also found a green woodpecker tail feather, which I'd wanted for a long time - two, in fact, the first being dark and very tatty, the second practically perfect. 

tawny owl, buzzard, jay, goldfinch, sparrowhawk, magpie, great spotted woodpecker, great tit, ring-necked parakeet, thrush, greenfinch

CLOCKWISE from top left: carder bee, wasp nest, light emerald moth, clouded yellow butterfly

Cwtch and I also went for a walk up to Ridgeway Cemetery, which was more overgrown than ever with summer greenery. Even though I know they're there, it's always a small shock to see the headstones poking up out of bramble thickets. 

There have also been favourite trees to visit ...

cherry resin

... and lots of 'tumnal fungi. 

And finally some hoggin, though I must admit, my focus is always on feathers during the fleeting moulting season ...

... though I always feel touched that one particular path at Snuff Mills likes to remind me where I'm from every time I walk it. 

Dog Days in the Frome and Trym valleys

I love woodland in summer; how it's different each time you walk through it, and as it's the holidays, I can be as leisurely as I like, wandering around Bristol's urban woods. I've even found myself feeling happy on occasion, which is quite unprecedented. 

I made a vow this summer to explore parts of the Frome and Trym valleys that I don't know, as well as the more familiar paths, and in the case of the Frome, it's been fascinating to see the extent to which it impacts the city's topography, even though for the most part it's invisible, either deep in its gorge or culverted. 

Having tried twice before - and failed - to reach Bury hill fort at Frenchay from Winterbourne viaduct, I was really pleased to get there on a couple of occasions, once with Cwtch the collie, and once with Cwtch and my old friend, Liz.

stone stiles

The hill fort was constructed in the iron age, but earlier flint chippings and an axe head discovered there attest to earlier occupation of the area. Cwtch and I had a wander through the ditch between banks on our first visit, and saw two roe deer in their red summer coats, leaping through the bracken and brambles.

A couple of miles downstream are Lincombe Woods in Downend, through which a fork of the Frome runs down to the river. The Frome walkway is on the opposite side of the river at this point, but you can still walk a short way north-east, and south-west down to Frenchay bridge, at the top of Snuff Mills. First, though, a detour to nearby Britannia Woods, so called because in 1957, a prototype Bristol Britannia aircraft crashed there, with the loss of all of on board - fifteen people in total. There's a plaque commemorating the incident on the wall of Lincombe Barn.

There's a big dip in the wood, and I couldn't help wondering whether that was where the plane came down, though it's situated on a hillside anyway, so maybe not.

I'd been intending to visit for a long time, as there was a strange sort of family connection to this event, in the form of an anecdote my mother told about how she'd dreamt the Britannia crashed just a few days before it did. She a said she always felt guilty for not telling anyone the authorities, but of course it's highly doubtful anyone would have taken any notice of her. The strangest thing about this story is that my mother had no interest in the subconscious or the supernatural; it really was an aberration as far as her mindset was concerned.

Lincombe Woods

Where fork meets Frome

A piece of hoggin bolstering the path between Lincombe Woods and Frenchay bridge. More about hoggin later.

Frenchay bridge

Quarry in Oldbury Court estate

I've also been walking along paths on the opposite bank of the Frome from the tried and tested footpaths. It's funny to see familiar sites from childhood from a new angle. 

Poor Cwtch was less impressed, as she mistook the leaves and dirt up against the barrier - you can just see it at the far end - for dry land and fell in the river.

'Can you please stop talking to that tree and get on with my walk?'

'No, cream first!'

School Lane, Stapleton

There were more familiar spots seen from the opposite bank from usual when we headed down the Begbrook to the Frome and walked as far as Glenfrome weir.

The island, covered in Himalayan Balsaam

Part of Glenfrome weir from the back

High above the Frome is Purdown, part of  Stoke Park estate, and Cwtch and I have been up there a fair bit this summer, skulking in some of the less frequented parts of the wood on the hunt for moulted feathers.

Having just thought to myself how good it would be to add a few more Great Spotted Woodpecker feathers to my collection, I did come across a sparrowhawk predation site early one morning, with a full quota of twenty wing feathers, plus a few tail, feathers, and red head and rump feathers. A question of being careful what you wish for. 

More about feathers later.

Autumn coming on apace

A felled ash refusing to die

Yum!

Strangely glittery purple poo

We've also been walking a lot at Blaise Castle, above the Ruver Trym, trying different starting points at the various entrances to the estate.

Tree on Castle Hill 

Giant's Footprint

Bridge on the River Trym

Sheltering from torrential rain one Sunday morning

Knobbly roots

'Observe a tree' carving

Up on King's Weston Down

There are lots of Mr Bumps, painted by Bumpsy, in the areas neighbouring Blaise, as well as on the estate. This one is near Henbury golf course.

Fewer flowers than earlier in the summer: here's (clockwise) yarrow; great burdock; fleabane; cuckoo pint; great willowherb, wtih escapees crocosmia and evening primrose; cyclamen; burnet-saxifrage; and ragwort as tall as me

 

fungi

Clockwise: the ladybirds were swarming mid-July in the hot, dry weather - I hadn't seen so many since the drought year of 1976, these on a stone in the middle of the River Frome; female beautiful demoiselle; hogweed with ladybird, red soldier beatle, narrow-barred fusehorn, large ectemnius and ichneumon sarcitorius; noctua pronuba; ladybird on great burdock; buff-tailed bumble   

hoggin, which has been harder to spot than usual with the leaves falling early following the hot weather

TOP ROW: blue tit; magpie, tawny owl, jay covert, goldcrest; jay covert and primary; 2 x buzzard, magpie, and 2 x jay secondaries; magpie, jay and great spotted woodpecker tail feather; magpie, goldcrest, 2 x jay coverts, mistle thrush, great spotted woodpecker; jay primary and secondary; buzzard, magpie, jay tail feather, tawny owl

MIDDLE ROW: 2 x buzzard, 2 x tawny, jay primary; magpie, tawny and blue tit; 2 x tawny, magpie, jay covert, buzzard; magpie and jay tail feather; 2 x magpie, 2 x jay tail feather, 2 x jay primary; jay tail feather; green woodpecker, jay tertial and tail feather, 2 x magpie; wren primary

BOTTOM ROW: tawny secondary and primary, green woodpecker, sparrowhawk, 4 x buzzard including primary and tail feather, 2 x jay primaries; 2 x jay tail feathers, buzzard, sparrowhawk and tawny; 3 x buzzard, 2 x magpie and a jay secondary; jay primary and covert, goldfinch and tawny; tawny and jay tail feather; magpie; jay tail feather

A dou-blue-n!