Highland Water

 

Highland Water, a dream in green at Queen Bower.

Which season?

Remind me again which season are we in. It could easily have been the tail end of summer or the beginning of a wet autumn...wet was the overriding theme of our walk this morning. I wouldn't normally expect the forest to be like this until mushroom season, September say. The Red Rise Brook was impassable at all my usual crossing points, and eventually I ended up rolling my shorts up, short shorts style and simply wading through...my boots had been breached and become sodden a mile or so ago.

Clouds

Nice clouds this morning.

Reclamation

Nature's exploding all over. Looking along the railway tracks from the old foot bridge it was almost as if it's wooded environs were straining to to consume them. Without regular human intervention I don't think it would take too many years before the rails were unnavigable, and only a few more until their course would disappear into thicket and jumbled shrub. I'll often wonder what the works of man would look like abandoned, and how long they'd take to be consumed by nature. It's a comfort in a way in light of our climate crisis, that it's not really the planet we're trying to save (such a human-centric perspective), it's our tenure on it, and if we fail it's us that'll be beyond saving. The planet, flora and fauna will all adapt and evolve, they'll all be just fine, different, but fine. Reassuring, really.

Cranemoor Common

Cranemoor Common is another of our local commons. Cranemoor is shown on older maps to have once extended beyond the railway line to the A35; that land is under the plough today and the remaining common runs along the urban side of the tracks, an interface between the suburban sprawl of Walkford/Highcliffe and the rural landscape which borders the New Forest.  Like the other pockets of common in the area it's an interesting and diverse environment, with a small stream, a pond, set in mixed woodland and niche habitats...also like many of it's fellow common pockets, it can have a peculiar, somewhat unnerving, vibe to it at times.

Sunset

It's been a while since I last enjoyed a sunset, they've either amounted to little, been obscured by cloud or I've simple not registered their passing. Tonight’s was only caught by chance, a glance up from reading and....wow! A flame coloured sky filled the horizon, it times of old no doubt a portent or sign. I wonder what sunsets were like say 4000 years ago. A period when Britain enjoyed a much fairer climate and if the proliferation of stone settings linked to astronomical events suggests anything, then a much clearer sky too. No pollution either. I'd imagine pollution must have a significant effect on the skies/sunrises/sunsets we see. Another date for the time machine. 

Highcliffe

We were up and out early this morning, so there were few folk about, leaving us the beach to walk by ourselves...we did 9.3 miles today. Before descending to the sands we paused, even though I pass this way with some regularity, I was still struck by the view... especially on a beautiful morning like this. Lovely.

In the summertime

 Traditional English summer... just add water.

Ooh!

Ooh! That's not a regular sight, a Deer in the central parcel of Chewton Common, in 25 years this is only the third I've seen. The first was 20 years ago, and this one happens to be the second in a week.  Last week one of the dog people told me he'd seen a large deer crossing the road that transects the common, so Geoff and I were particularly deft and vigilant as we wove the commons winding paths. It was Geoff who clocked the deer first and was off through the bramble choked thicket; the deer had more open ground behind it and soon was gone. I only caught a couple of glances as it disappeared in to thicket. Today's deer was not the same one, it was smaller, younger maybe. It didn't appear too fazed by our presence though, happy to check us out for a while before moving out of sight casually. The presence of a deer in the common highlights what I've mentioned before, that the pockets of common and strips of woodland create and act as wildlife corridors allowing animal movement through our urban intrusions into their natural world.

Bure Brook

Chewton Common isn't one parcel of land, it no doubt would've been, although by the 80's years of invasive development from Highcliffe and Walkford had reduced it to fragments of its former glory. The remaining fragments vary in size and exist in isolation, although only just so; through your minds eye though, you can imagine the common that was. Bure Brook runs through the north-eastern parcel of Chewton Common, still only an easy strides width at this point. Dry now, the surrounding woodland is seasonally wet and languishes mostly neglected, which is a shame as it's particularly florally diverse, a secret oasis. The trees in the photo stand on the bank of a small irregular sub rectangular enclosure, the origins of which I've no idea, some are couple of hundred years old which suggests the enclosure is older than that.  That's something for me to explore. 

 

Hare raising

 I don't remember a year when I've seen so many Hares.

Willow snow

The conditions have been perfect for wind dispersal, sunny and warm with a very gentle breeze, and for a few days now the seeds of the Common's numerous Willows (Salix) have filled the air. Willow's produce an inordinate amount of small fluffy seeds only a couple of millimetres long, they're so prodigious that the seeds can fill the air for days and once grounded they gather like drifts of fluffy snow on the sides of the Common's narrow paths. A lovely seasonal happening.