Blackbury Camp

Early Purple Orchid- Orchis mascula

I saw the last flower up on the other side of the hill about a week ago and wondered what sort of orchid it was. There were only two of these in the wood though it turns out to grow commonly throughout Europe. I asked our friendly plant expert Jean what it might be, and she thinks it's an Early Purple Orchid. It was quite dark where this was taken so the flower may have been a bit lighter in colour than it appears in the photo. Nice to see it anyway. Above that are the bluebells and the last few remaining daffodils, it being that time of year again.

bluebell wood

The driest March on record was followed by the driest April though water still comes down off the hill in small streams and the colours of green are fresh. The bluebells have been undisturbed by any strong winds or rain so remain upright but the ground is very dry. There is the sound of humming insect life and birdsong and then the wind picks up. We walk up and away from the bluebell wood and out onto the heathland.

Bluebell Woods

Up in the woods it's bluebell time again and their attractive purple haze is spread lightly across the warming hillsides. These are common bluebells and are the older and native species of flower, differing from the Spanish bluebell which is now often found in gardens in the UK. The common bluebell has a deeper colour than the Spanish variety.

Bluebells are used as an indicator of ancient woodland and have been around here since the ice retreated about 12,000 years ago. Also out at the moment are the Ransoms, a form of wild garlic with an attractive smell and nice white flowers. These are similar to the three cornered leeks which like the ransom are also edible. The bulbs can be smoked and eaten, that is smoked like a fish rather than in a pipe, although I haven't tried smoking them in a pipe yet.

The first couple of photos show the bluebells as they were just coming out a couple of weeks ago and most of the rest were taken yesterday, which is a lot more up to the minute than I can usually manage.

It has been a long cold winter and it is good to be able to spend more time pottering through the woods enjoying these signs of returning growth. Nature gets on with her business seemingly unhindered by the increasing foolishness of man. I think she will sort things out in the long run, somehow, although we are not really helping her much as a species at the moment.

the rags of time

Plenty of rain has fallen recently so lots of growth here at the moment producing the tallest bluebells seen for a good few years. Gales heve blown through and battered the flowers but it is good to see so much rain at this time of year as it is right for spring. These pictures were taken at the end of April so the flowers still had a way to go before being fully in bloom. These were taken on Salcombe Hill which is a good steep climb out of Sidmouth and generally not that popular as a walk as you have to go straight up the Salcombe Road and then hang a left, it is very steep climb so not so good for fag smokers and layabouts but popular with the car drivers.

I got slightly lost in these woods a while back and at a particular point couldn't work out why so much rubbish was turning up, some of it very old, some of it very new, when all of a sudden in a crescendo of debris I came over a bank onto the Salcombe Road. For years, as people drive between Sidmouth and Salcombe, they come to this nice hidden wooded part and they throw all the junk out the back of their vans and cars into the woods. Considering this road doesn't really go anywhere very important (Salcombe telephone box is one of the least used in the UK) it is quite a busy little road and everybody seems very much in a hurry to be somewhere else.

I have been reading at the World Press Network Forum lately which has some good links to articles for news and comment on the global financial situation http://worldpressnetwork.net/forum/index.php?sid=0e6d8d981ab9bd4319e0d3323a90cbd0
the Silver Bear Cafe has some interesting articles too;http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/home.html

spring; over the hills

After a long winter the sun makes a sudden brief appearance and the trees cast shadows which move quickly across the hills.

Up on monkey island near the withered hand the bluebells are coming out again. There are many different apects of the woods around the hills here but only some small stretches of proper woodland remain, the rest having been replaced with conifers and suchlike. Monkey Island is only a few hundred yards long but seems bigger as the terrain is steep and boggy or tangled so it can be slow going up here, but slowing down is good and stopping is even better sometimes.

The walk is up and out of town and the fuss and busyness of it all drop away so all that remains are the birds singing and the other natural sounds. The town feels a long way away from here but it isn't really. Up here it is good to see the spring sun doing its work.

These particular shadows are quite a rare event as usually the sun is only this strong when the leaves are already fully open, so these bare branch shadows would not normally be seen.

Here are the first bluebells. There are not too many flowers yet but in a week or two they will all be there to see.

A Bluebell Wood in Fog

Oh well -I got that off my chest. Do I feel better about it all? Not really but back to business as usual, such as it is.

One of the things I like doing very much is walking in the fog, it always seems to me that things are being created around you as you walk and the scale of the world diminishes in size to the small space surrounding you. It also does interesting things to sound.

I remember that where I grew up many years ago near a busy port that I would go down to the beach at night when it was foggy and could hear the voices of people talking on boats and ships a long way out on the water, it must be something to do with sound travelling better through the medium of water or something and also because it was very quiet anyway. I always enjoyed the sounds that would come out of the fog on such nights such as foghorns and various bell sounds and it was these early sonic soundscapes that stimulated my interest in ambient sound recording and production, something that I still enjoy.

One of my favourite recordings is Brian Eno's Ambient 4 On Land which has just the sort of stuff that I am attempting to describe and although it is not really an ambient recording as such it does seem to describe places and their moods very well, and it is something that I always find very relaxing to listen to. At some point I will try to put some of my own pieces of recording of this nature onto the intertube for you all to listen to.

I also enjoy the work of Chris Watson who is a sound recordist who works in radio and television although I am old enough to remember that he was in the band Cabaret Voltaire who produced some very interesting music in the 80s. I also listen to a recording made by the late Roger Deakin, a naturalist who made a bbc radio 4 program of the sounds around his house recorded over one year which is called "The house" very nice and recommended indeed.

Anyway I hope that you enjoy these photo's of my walk in the fog, it is a shame that I couldn't get a photograph of the very large fox that I saw but I was attempting to be very still so that I could see what was coming, as I could hear the sound of something approaching and scaring the birds, who flew towards me, as the fox was not being very quiet about its business.