April Flowers

As the blackthorn blossom fades away, Milton Country Park comes into flower.

By Fen Road Entrance 13 April 2015

Some of the  most conspicuous of this new crop of flowers are the catkins on the pussy willow (Salix caprea).  This bank of willow in full flower greets the visitor entering the park from the Fen Road entrance.

Western Edge of Todd's Pit 20 April 2015

Slightly less conspicuous, though probably as common are the catkins on the white willow.  This specimen shines like a candle above the path which runs along the western edge of Todd's Pit.

In the Woods

Woods at Northern End of Park 28 April 2015

During the early part of the year, cuckoo pint plants stand out as the only substantial green plants beneath the trees.  However, by the time they come into flower, they have been overtaken by other plants, notably cow parsley and nettles.  With inconspicuous green flowers they are easily overlooked.  The ground around this particular specimen remains clear, but heavy growth of cow parsley is clearly to be seen in the background.

Woods East Side of Dickerson's Pit 24 April 2015

There is a lot of ground ivy in the country park, with substantial masses of it growing in the grassland at the northern end of the park.  There is an equally large area of ground ivy growing in the woods at the east side of Dickerson Pit in amongst the leaf litter and moss covered logs.  The image above was taken in the latter area,  which I find not only visually more interesting,  but also a habitat less common outside the park.

Cowslip Surprise

Southern End of Wetlands 17 April 2015

This  patch of cowslips growing at the southern end of the Wetlands is probably the biggest surprise I have had to date in this project.  It shows how much we all miss when walking around familiar territory.

All Change

Tomkins Mead 20 April 2015

I have always been aware that things happen very rapidly in spring - blossom comes and goes in rapid succession and plants spring up almost overnight.  However, until I started this project, I had not realised just how quickly things change; and, despite visiting the country park three or four times a week, I know I am missing things I would have liked to have photographed.  Equally, I work on the basis that all blossom is ephemeral, and must be photographed as soon as possible, otherwise it will be lost.  I took these forget-me-knots the first time I saw them one misty April morning. In the event, I need not have worried as they were still making a fine show a fortnight later.

I am learning lots about the natural world, and appreciating it all the more. 

NEXT: GOING GREEN 

Goodbye Autumn

April is the time when Milton Country Park finally loses its autumn colours, and the first signs of spring appear.

10 April 2015

I am not sufficient of a botanist to identify these leaves with any confidence, but I think they may be Hazel.

Goodbye Autumn

Since autumn has ended, winter has come and gone; but in terms of the appearance of the park, it has made very little difference.  The trees, that were essentially bare at the end of November, are still bare, having lost at most an odd leaf or two.  The reeds that were brown at that time, are still brown, just maybe a little dashed down.

Todd's Pit 9 April 2015

This was taken early on a misty April morning. The grey mist, the brown reeds and the bare branches give an essentially autumn scene.  However, in the foreground, the first green shoots of the nettles show that spring is on its way.


Something Stirring in the Woods

Near Hall's Pond  16 April 2015

One of the habitats in the park that interests me most is ground under the woods.  This is covered in forest litter of dead leaves interspersed with moss covered rotten logs.  A lot of plants grow either directly on these logs or in close proximity to them.  This is a habitat I hope to explore further in the coming year.

Here young shoots of cow parsley are growing alongside the moss.  Also, visible in the image are a couple of other seedlings poking through the dead leaves. 


Not Everything is Green

Todd's Pit 16 April 2015

There is one thing about reed beds that fascinates me: in November they are brown, in July they are green, but I have never noticed a reed bed that is half green and half brown.  Perhaps in the course of this project I will.

The woods behind these reeds are nicely green, but there is precious little sign of any new shoots in the reeds themselves.  Two of the white blobs in the image are not carrier bags but nesting swans.


The Dawn of Spring

I end this post with two images of the dawn of spring which appropiately enough were taken at the dawn of the day.

View across Todd's Pit  18 April 2015

Mist rises over the water with brown reeds glinting in the early morning sun.  A lot of vegetation has no leaves at all.  But this is not autumn; the golden leaves on the trees are not last year's growth, but new leaves on the willow trees.

By Fen Road Exit  13 April 2015

In this image, a fully leaved hawthorn bush catches the early morning sun.  The trees behind the bush are still totally bare.  This is spring set in an autumn setting.  Hello spring!

NEXT: APRIL FLOWERS

Blossom

Late March sees the first transformation of the year in the appearence of Milton Country Park.  The blackthorn comes into flower, producing large patches of brilliant white flowers throughout the park.

Blackthorn Blossom 23 March 2015

Elusive Blooms

On the edge of the Wetlands 23 March 2015

Despite its prominence, blackthorn is surprisingly elusive to photograph. The delicate white flowers, which appear before the leaves, create a light snowlike smattering across the surrounding vegetation.  To the eye, the blossom is obvious; in a photograph, the flowers are easily lost in the complexity of the surrounding bushes, or against the light grey of a typical spring sky.  In this image, the central spiral-like structure is evident, but outlying blossom is somewhat lost.

Flowering Bushes

Exit to Fen Road 23 March 2015

A lot of the blackthorn bushes in the country park are growing alongside the paths.  Intermingled with these are trees whose trunks are encased in dark green ivy. This tends to produce images with a very harsh and unpleasant contrast. An effect amplified by the narrow paths which often have one side in bright sunlight and the other side in deep shadow.  This view of the exit path to Fen Road does not have these very strong contrasts.  The building visible at the end of the path adds to a rustic feel.

 

Towards Fen Road Exit 23 March 2015

It is quite unusual to make an image of a natural environment that has any strong graphic qualities - trees do not grow in straight lines, bushes do not grow as perfect spheres, and plants and bushes freely intermingle.  However, here the white dome of the blackthorn, echoed in the background trees, provides a strong graphic contrast to the single white line of the birch trunk to the right.

Lonely Daffodils
 

North End of Todd's Pit 5 April 2015

Besides blackthorn, there are odd isolated clumps of daffodils like this scattered throughout the park.  Daffodils inevitably invoke thoughts of Wordsworth.  But a single isolated clump like this seems to epitomise the very opposite of the poet's sentiment: it is the daffodils that are as lonely as a cloud, and the onlookers (park visitors) who are the host.

In Summary

Todd's Pit 5 April 2015

 
This image is in someways a coda for this post: delicate blossom lost against the surrounding bushes and the grey sky.  Yet, the appearance of blackthorn leaves and the bright green of young shoots on other vegetation point to the greening of the park to come.

A Note on the Schedule


From now on, I shall be publishing a new post on the second and fourth Saturday of each month.  When I started this blog, I expected that each new post would reflect the changes in Milton Country Park in the previous fortnight or so.  It has come very forcibly to my attention that nature does not work like this: sometimes a lot alters in a very short time (like now in spring time); at other times, nothing much happens for weeks.  The contents of each post are therefore going to be dictated by nature.  When change is rife, I will playback the changes in slow motion and use more posts for a given time period.  When nature is dormant, I will fast forward and use a single post for a more extended time period.

NEXT: GOODBYE AUTUMN 

Welcome

Welcome to the first instalment of a year long photographic record of Milton Country Park. 

Hall's Pond 25 February 2015

Milton Country Park
Milton Country Park is situated three miles north of Cambridge.  It is a 95 acre site of old gravel workings.  Besides the disused gravel pits, the park offers wetlands, woods and more open meadows.  For more details on the park visit http://www.miltoncountrypark.org/.


Origins of my Project
I have lived just 15 minutes walk from the park since its creation in 1993.  Having acquired a labrador puppy last summer, I looked for a project in which I could mix exercising the dog with photography.  The country park seemed to offer the perfect opportunity.

However, the immediate trigger for the project was a discussion at Milton Photographic Club  on the subject of finding colour in the local landscape in a drab February.  In the following days, I went searching for colour in the country park, and found that on a sunny day there was plenty of colour around in the form of the near complimentary blue and yellow as shown in the image of Hall's Pond at the top of this post.  In fact, the more I looked the more I found.

From this, I realised there was a great deal more to see in the park than I had previously appreciated.  Hence, the project was born to photograph the park for a year to capture the changing seasons.



First Images

Todd's Pit February 24 2015

The park in late February, early March  still retains an autumnal feel.   The trees are bare, and the reed beds and other vegetation are overwhelmingly yellow/brown with little or no sign of new growth.  However, the reeds glow golden on a sunny day, constrasting with the deep blue of the sky reflected in the water. This image of one of the inlets off Todd's Pit is very much an autumnal scene and could have been taken any time in a three month period. 

The blue / orange pairing is found in abundance around the pits, even extending to some of the fishing platforms.   

Jetty 24 February 2015

However, as the picture below shows that not everything is blue and yellow! Away from the water, the moss on the fallen logs is a
particularly bright green, which in this image is contrasted strongly with last year's ivy leaves.

Ivy and Moss 23 March 2015

Lessons Learnt
In the first fortnight of this project, I have learnt two lessons.

Firstly, I like taking photographs on a sunny day.  I know this is an deeply unfashionable view for a photographer, but the sun makes me feel good.  And, if I feel good, I take better photographs.

Secondly, a whole lot of advantages accrue from photographing just 15 minutes from home in a place with which you are thoroughly familiar.  If you miss a shot one day, then the chances are you will be able to go back the next day and do a lot better.  The difficulty is learning to appreciate, and hence want to photograph, the very familiar.  So far in the country park, I am finding plenty of new subjects.  Perhaps, I never really looked before. 

NEXT: BLOSSOM