The glory


There are people that pay thousands of pounds and spend days of travel to see the wonders of the natural world. The truth is, such wonders are available right on our door step. I have been lucky enough to see a great deal of Britain's coast line and am regularly taken aback by its beauty and splendour. Our recent trip to North Cornwall only confirmed our love of its rugged cliffs and sandy beaches. Photographs give only the merest indication as to what is truly on show before the observer, as the sensation of height, the true depth of field and all of the aural stimulants are missing.

One can but try and share in the glory that is out there. All the pictures accompanying this post were taken from the coastal path between Mawgan Porth and Watergate Bay last Friday afternoon. It was an afternoon of sun, sheltered warmth and that blessed state of being aware that, what is being experienced, is one of those special times. The Spring Squill was a delight, with large but discrete colonies along the length of the walk. In some hidden hollows the plants were in full flower, those in more exposed positions still in bud.

And what is it about the human psyche? When stood at the top of a cliff, we need to get down to the beach. But if we start on the beach, we need to reach the summit of the cliff. Extremities. We just love 'em.



Spring Squill - tens of thousand of plants were present along the coastal path and cliff tops
Wall - a butterfly that I once saw regularly locally, as nearby as Beddington and Cheam, in the early 1980s

Comments

Simon Douglas Thompson said…
Trebarwith Strand is the best beach I ever came across
16 April 2019 at 20:41
Steve Gale said…
I’ve not been there Simon.
16 April 2019 at 21:34
Yossarian said…
What a beautiful flower. Last week I was lucky enough to take a stroll on an Alpine mountainside with tour guide very knowledgeable about plants - we saw various orchids and extraordinary bright yellow Adonis flowers (also a superb aspic viper which I didn't manage to get a pic of). But that spring squill is a beauty. And yes, the Cornish light is special.
16 April 2019 at 23:14
Steve Gale said…
I must return to the Alps. A wonderful place.
18 April 2019 at 21:12
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goldfinches and Lavender

Image
We have three medium-sized Lavender bushes in our back garden. Throughout the summer the flowers (which last for several months) are a magnet for insects and give off a most restful aroma. As tempting as it is to cut the dead stems in the autumn, we always leave them, as we know that during the late winter we will get visitors to feed on the seed heads... This video was taken from the kitchen window this morning. We will normally see one or two birds over a few days, but have had up to 14 at once. We never tire of watching them. Lavender is a wonderful plant to have in the garden, with year round natural history benefits. So what are you waiting for? They are readily available at a garden centre close to you right now! There is an historic association with Lavender in this part of northern Surrey and south London. Lavender fields have been harvested for many years, with one particular field close to Woodmansterne being very popular with day trippers. A significant proportion o...
Read more

Welcome back!

Image
In November 2005 I purchased a pair of Swarovski 10x42 EL binoculars from The London Camera Exchange shop in Guildford, for the then princely sum of £899. These bins have served me well, with almost daily use in all types of weather, testing their durability to the maximum - salt water spray, deluges of rain, 38C temperatures, dust, dirt, slight knocks... and apart from the armour coating that had started to bubble and come away from the body, nothing to be alarmed about. Then, in the summer of 2022, I noticed that I had a problem when close focusing - the outer focusing wheel would lose grip and it would take me an age to regain a middle-ground distance of focus - plus, over the next few weeks this outer focusing wheel became loose. I resorted to the use of tape to keep it all in place, but realised that I had to do something about it in the long run. For a while I did consider buying a new pair - after all, they were then 17-years old - but they were still optically superb. It seemed...
Read more

A special day

In birding, timing can mean the difference between an average day in the field and that of a spectacular one. Good timing can be helped by reading the weather conditions correctly, or understanding local conditions but it is more often down to pure luck. In this case, I just got lucky... I had not visited Dungeness since March 2022, quite a gap for me. It was high time that I once more trod the shingle and my timing of a visit was down to several factors, mostly a personal liking for mid-late autumn but also because I needed to be at home until September 20th and could not make the journey south until then. I also chose to stay at the bird observatory for a few days rather than make it a day trip. All this conveniently found me stepping outside the observatory's back door in the breaking dawn of Sunday 22nd September, quickly making my way to the fishing boats, an area I prefer to stand to best appreciate any visible bird migration, an aspect of birding that I find exhilarating.  A...
Read more