Scowles First Light

Two consecutive dawns in late April delivered heavy overnight frosts, negligible wind, cloud free eastern horizons at sunrise and low angled warm light to illuminate scowles woodland. The latitude of the Forest of Dean, modest elevation above sea level and post spring equinox, ensures the duration of first light at sunrise lasts only a few minutes.

First light provided illumination of the interior woodland and mineral workings, although the ground flora is sparse, limited to flora able to cope with deep shade cast from beech and yew trees. Given the environment and nature of light, I was reasonably happy with the images made, although another trip in a fortnight might produce more pleasing results as the sunrise azimuth will provide a better angle of first light at another scowles location.

I do enjoy the photography challenges presented by ephemeral light in a woodland environment, although with negligible wind, there are opportunities with twilight and post first light to fall back on.

The previsioned atmospheric daffodil woodland photograph - theory and practice

The forecast was for clear skies, a windless dawn and an overnight frost. An unusual combination for late March in recent years and the warming rays of an early spring sun could potentially raise ethereal wisps of vapour or even better a blanket of vapour. With low angled sunlight shining through mist and tree trunks onto a carpet of wild daffodils, it would be the atmosphere that would do justice to a daffodil wood. The alarm was set.

Frost free wild daffodil carpet

On the drive to the wood the roadside foliage was covered with frost and the walk along the woodland ride was over frosted foliage. The woodland daffodil carpets were frost free, c'est la vie.

A wild daffodil wood sans frost

Suffice to write, the desired atmospherics didn't materialise, a slight haze would be the best description, sigh.

The sun rose quickly into a clear blue sky, which gives a small window for photography before harsh lighting and cool blue shadows dominate the scenery. With no prospect of overhead cloud, the camera gear is packed away and time to go walkabout, enjoy the sights and sounds of a spring woodland, with the warming rays of the sunshine.

A trip to a daffodil wood

The county flower of Gloucestershire is the wild daffodil and its stronghold is in the north-west of the county where it borders Herefordshire, in an area called the Golden Triangle.  There are fields, meadows, churchyards, orchards and woodland that are carpeted in wild daffodils, some of the best displays are in Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust nature reserves,. The video is courtesy of the GWT.



It was a fine spring day to visit the wood, with a chorus of birdsong as a backdrop and large bumble bees visiting the flowers. The woodland hinted at its ancient credentials with coppice stools of small leaved lime and emerging foliage of other flora indicative of ancient woodland. Probably at least a week early for the peak of daffodil flowering, but nonetheless a good day for a spring walk. One day the weather will align to produce a dawn that would do justice to the atmosphere of a daffodil wood, until then it is a matter of waiting patiently.

A daffodil wood.

An Ancient Woodland Yew

I am fortunate to live in an area where ancient yew trees grow and a visit to a local wood emphasised this point. We had been exploring the woodland, following the boundary, avoiding the plantations and walking the geology, when I recalled the wood has an ancient yew, so a detour made to show Nic. I do not profess to be an expert in ancient yews, however I've viewed yew trees with known planting dates from the 17th and 18th Century and also some of the oldest Yews in the UK. A 300 year old oak or beech tree will turn heads, a 300 year old yew tree rarely merits a glance, by most definitions yew is a slow growing tree. There was a research study of Yews at Alice Holt some years ago that demonstrated the slow growth of woodland yews. The yew we detoured to, is not of the size of churchyards yews, but as a wild yew in a woodland habitat it certainly has an aura of great age.

King Yew and Nic

Nic asked me the history of the yew, sadly I could only recollect some hazy details, it had been possibly a decade since my last visit and a while since I'd rea up on it. I was fairly sure it had a name and some of the ages attributed seemed far too conservative. Viewed from one direction the tree appears of some age, a view from another direction reveals a morphology that hints at a great age. The tree appears to be in a rejuvenating state where new wood is being grown over deadwood, the cause of the deadwood can only be speculated at; disease, trunk collapse, vandalism, storm damage, lightning strike or more probably the capacity of a senescent yew to rejuvenate itself.

King Yew - new wood growing over dead.

On returning home I looked up the tree on the Ancient Yew website, the yew is known as the King Yew and now has some history ascribed to it; a possible boundary tree in an Anglo Saxon charter of land granted in 956 AD by King Eadwig to Bath Abbey. Which suggests that the Yew tree in the 10th Century was of a suitable stature to be assigned as charter landscape feature.

The Shaden Tuft oak

Within the Churchill Inclosure in the Forest of Dean, there stands a large pollarded oak, it has been named the Shaden Tuft oak and unusually for a woodland tree, has been assigned a fairly precise planting date of 1599 and has been used as an example for dating of veteran and ancient trees in a Forestry Commission report. In an historical context, at the time of the oaks planting, Queen Elizabeth I was the reigning monarch and William Shakespeare was putting quill to ink and writing some of the finest works in the English language. The tree has also withstood some remarkable weather - great storms, droughts and the cold of the 'little ice age'.

Shaden Tuft oak

If the pollarding of the Shaden Tuft oak wasn't the result of storm breakage, then it hints at the possible woodland management regime at the time and the pollarding has probably ensured its continued presence, overlooked by Royal Navy shipwrights and then successive generations of timber merchants. Whilst not being particularly notable for its age - it is entering the oak equivalence of middle age - and all being well, should witness the events of the 26th C unfold.

I have wandered past this tree, I guess on average a couple of times a year for well over a decade and its presence gives continuity to the woodland and a tangible link to the past. There's something about old trees that provides a wood with a certain je ne sais quoi and I am no doubt that the woodland would be a poorer place in the absence of the older trees.

Cathedral lighting in the woods

I have never been a fan of incorporating the sun in landscape photos, aesthetically it doesn't push my buttons, however in woodland, I am a fan of contre-jour lighting. Specifically woodland with a high canopy, where any openings or gaps in the canopy present an opportunity for what I call 'cathedral lighting'. The best lighting is from low angle light from a rising sun and the lighting effect as it passes through the dew saturated, translucent leaves and fronds of autumnal bracken, is reminiscent of sunlight through a stained glass window.

Recent weather has been remarkably benign, with no wind and clear blue skies, the prospect of clear skies holds little appeal for hills and uplands, so the woods have been visited for the sunrise in expectation of mist and fog, that expectation has yet to be fully met. After a break from woodland photography, the more visually complex scenery needed a recalibration of composition as many some images could have been better balanced and other images didn't convincingly capture the nature of the wood or indeed woodland. I am hoping that some mist will also put in an appearance before the leaves fall.