Priory Park Walk

  Priory Park in Bedford is quite varied in content, and ideal in which to walk, yet feel quite alone in the open space I find. On this visit, I was unsure whether I would find subjects for my camera, after parking my car at my destination, so initially made the decision to walk the route sans camera. that was less than ideal as it turned out as the point at which I entered the park was one long and less than exciting straight path. having walked its length, I decided I should reconsider that decision, so turned around and headed back. On a day with such oppressive heat, this was definitely a poor start, and wasted a considerable amount of energy and time!

I returned to the car and made a new decision, I would take my light rucksack and add food and flask, as well as my camera; in this instance the Lumix FZ10002 once again. Then I headed back along the recently walked path with its proven lack of interest to go deeper to see what I might find. The first item of interest I feel sure was a jackdaw feather – Its condition was pristine, which I found to be surprising for such a well-developed feather.

Early in my walk, I came across a lone Coot, that’s feeding from a part of a currently dry weir, and it seemed totally oblivious of my presence, so rather than take up a large part of the gallery of general images, I have created a standalone gallery that covers the bird’s activity as a separate entity.

The direction I later took was beneath one of the bridges along the river, which displayed considerable colourful graffiti and across the water from me, a group of youngsters set fire to something then stood around watching it envelope in flames. On my side, I spotted a partially full bottle I supposed was a lager, on a ledge, little realising that one amongst that number of kids a moment later was to appear on the same side as myself and pick it up, and wantonly throw it to the ground, smashing it. Sadly as a lone witness to his vandalism, there was little point in remonstrating since in total, the group possibly numbered around ten youths, so I just recorded more graffiti and took a shot of more civilised and relaxed behaviour beyond.

The road above my chosen path was carried in a curve around these various waters with some very interesting architecture of a far more recent bridge, which had far greater appeal, since much of my career had been spent photographing varied aspects of architecture in and around London and further afield.

As my walk continued I found myself recording bees, butterflies and cygnets and then I left the river to return to my car, and spotted an overflow of luxurious grapes hanging beyond the bounds of the house offering a bounty for passing walkers when they are ripe! Alongside also some very young acorns caught my eye, as did the skies that greeted me on my return home.  I should add also, that the route I took to leave the park was foolishly chosen beyond the bounds of the park and made the journey back to the car even longer than the walk within!

In terms of satisfaction, the shots beneath the road bridge gave me the most pleasure on this jaunt as I appreciated its curves and structure.

Marston Moretaine - Two Seasons?

It was as I took the path between the gardens to reach my Lock-Up, that I spotted a large spider weaving its Web across from one of the fences to the garage roof; He was bright enough (and considerate to even six-foot plus humans!) to weave it high enough to avoid any normal height humans from destroying his work. I noticed also fresh blossom of both blue and white flowers, more commonly to be expected around in Spring, and only a short walk further a wide expanse of hedge with the totally expected colours of red and gold. And there another equally large spider who literally as I watched left across a gap to start his; they seemed of the same species, and despite my referring to him as male, I have no clue as to the sex of either!

Not unnaturally, after having collected a tool from the lock-up, I broke off to grab my camera and record what I had seen, the afternoon was bright with feather-like clouds formed by the effect of crosswinds blowing across contrails between large Cumulus clouds, and although the sun was occasionally occluded by these clouds, overall the light was bright and really brought out the very definite reds of early autumn in the leaves in hedgerow, so I spent an enjoyable time capturing the work of the spiders, the white and blue blossom hanging over the back of one of the gardens seemed at odds with the season, both colours were mainly very fresh, and such a contrast to the red covering of the hedge.

It was amongst the blossom that I heard the buzzing of a bee, and when I spotted it alight of the white flowers, I caught sight of the most hirsute of bees, it was as if s/he was wearing a fur coat! Upon even closer inspection later in post-processing that at one of my chosen angles it looked to be wearing spectacles!

 Look closely at the picture that heads this piece

It was wonderful to be able to catch these shots at that very early autumn stage when in amongst the abundant red leaves were t be found young yellow and green fresh leaves to add extra depth to the range of colours, I hope those viewing the gallery will gain as much pleasure from the beauty I captured as I did witnessing them.