Month nine of my photographer’s nature journal.
Time to go back to the lanes and see what, if anything, is around. It is a sublime day. Cloudless blue sky, temperature around 17°C and barely the whisper of a breeze. Robins serenade me on my circuit of the lanes and the hill. Yes, a walk around the lanes has to include a hike up the hill if only for the views of the turquoise sea.
Sunrise with the Harvest Moon
Crows “caw caw” across the fields and Jackdaws “mhwah mhwah” in response. At one point I stop to listen to a frog or a toad croaking in the undergrowth. I wait in hope that it might leave its hiding place, but no. Time to move on. I meet a lady walking her dog (everyone in Cornwall seems to own a dog) and she tells me about a barn owl trapped in the hedgerow only the other day. The lanes are full of surprises.
I pause beside a particularly popular bunch of flowering ivy. Swarming with bees and flies and hoverflies feasting on the late-season nectar I am focusing on one particularly large white-tailed bumblebee when a Red Admiral butterfly comes in to land, but obstinately refuses to open its wings for the camera. Before I go I spot a ladybird sunbathing on a leaf. Should I concentrate on colour or texture? Or insects? Or maybe shadows?
Every time I walk this circuit I still get the same shock of surprise when turning a bend I see the beautiful Mounts Bay on the horizon. It seems so close. Glossy green ivy leaves gleam in the hedgerows and the sunlight catches the ferns too.
Red fuchsias hang down like ear-drops and contrast nicely against the cerulean sky. Hips are in short supply. The only place I know where to find big fat ones is almost bare. The few hips in view are shrunk and wizened. Hydrangea lines the lane close to a hamlet in the dip where shade replaces sunlight: here grows an enormous Monterey pine tree (Pinus radiata) tree with its amazing structural presence and wide trunk and limbs.
Up on the hill I am looking for signs of autumn. A red tinged leaf. Bronze or golden bracken. Dried out foxgloves. Haws on the hawthorn, blackberries, red berries of the wild honeysuckle, dying leaves and seed heads of the buddleia, pretty green oak leaves and of course the ubiquitous gorse. Bleached out grasses sway gently.
I stop frequently and make a 360 degree turn to see what is around me. In doing so I spot the lonely flower of a honeysuckle, a tiny red leaf amongst green, the sun shining on a patch of grass which I photographed only five minutes before, but is now looking so much different. A clump of purple heather. It is a mindful walk. Smells, sounds, sights. Touch and even taste.
Sitting on the rock on the top of the hill and surveying the land below makes me wonder, not for the first time, why I ever need to leave this place.
The Changing Seasons | September
Cornwall in Colours 
This is just what it was like two years ago when we were there in September. The colours were beginning to turn. So beautiful.
You were here for an exceptional September. It’s not been that good this year and of course the late winter snow and the drought in summer have had a huge impact on the flowers this year. I have noticed the lanes looking particularly ‘dead’ most of the summer months.
Yesterday was scorching, I was in Colyford for the annual Goose Fair. Most people were dressed in medieval costumes and must have roasted.
So what did you taste, blackberries? Perhaps yours have had more rainfall to swell them up, around here they’re hard and biter!
Scorching? Not so down here, but pleasantly warm and cloudy. The blackberries were not as plentiful as last year, but tasted fine.
Oh my, those blues in the honeysuckle and robin against the sky!
It was a fabulous day. In fact a fabulous week. Not such a fabulous weekend though 😦
Oh no! Been not too bad here.
wonderful photos and lovely blog
Thank you, that’s so kind of you.
I hope the builders are finished now Jude, and you get a little peace. Thanks for making your walk to inviting (words and photos) that I felt I was there too. I was going to say slowing you down with my dodgy knee, but it sounds like you’ve got a few aches too. Hope the winter doesn’t prove too harsh.
Not quite finished yet Su. Got them back tomorrow and then later in the week to install the glass lantern. Then the inside needs plastering and painting. but I am hopeful it will look amazing when finished.
That’s the light at the end of the tunnel. 🙂
I’ve been sneaking looks at the wrong blog. I nearly missed this one. I love it – part of a long tradition of books and essays iIve loved that focus on one particular and beloved place, even a rare Australian one. There is so much to notice and you notice it wonderfully in both images and words. I enjoyed the difficult choice about which thing to focus on, and then your final sentiment “why would I ever need to leave here?” Indeed!
Thank you Meg. I so appreciate you visiting still 🙂
Why indeed Jude?! So much beauty around you. Then again perhaps leave to better appreciate what you come back to😉
That’s quite a good idea Tina. I need to start making plans.
As I’m reading your words I”m imagining a soft sing-song cadence that seems to match the photos so well. It’s interesting that while our springs are usually so dramatically different, the look of our Septembers should be so similar. Except for the view of Mounts Bay, your photos look like home 🙂
You seem to have found your paradise. A beautiful descriptive post with lovely photos to match. I suspect the Cornwall Tourism Bureau may be contacting you soon enough.
I don’t think I want to encourage anyone else to visit Cornwall, it is getting far too busy!