Crags in sunlight and shadow above Kentmere Hall A hint of blue appears and the sun peeps through early mist. A soft and glimmering light roves over the fells, illuminating crags, then passing and plunging them into deep shadow. Some trees show a skeletal presence, ready for Halloween. The earth has a rich carpet of fallen leaves with a scatter of tiny green crab apples. Each time a beck crosses our track , through Hall Wood, bound for the River Kent, we hear tumbling water. A cormorant, wings outstretched to dry, stands on the shore of Kentmere Tarn, as if it hasn't moved since our last visit.
Ancient trees arc in spooky shapes, touching down into deep mosses. Lichens and fungi pattern their trunks. High pitched goldcrest call in the canopy, and nuthatch. A flock of long-tailed tits flits through the branches, silhouettes amidst leaves floating to earth.
Late October light is distinctive as the sun is lower in the sky. Only when it breaks through the mist do we begin to glimpse the fells, through the woodland fringe. There's coppiced hazel, leaves golden and bronze, the trees thick with green catkins fully formed to hibernate and await the coming of spring.
A buzzard soars over the fields by Kentmere Hall and a raven calls. Light from the south floods the Kentmere Valley but now the tops are in darkness, all detail lost. It's an atmospheric and evocative day rich in autumn colour, with sounds of water, sometimes a muddy track and scents of decay. The wavering light is lovely and so volatile I have to be quick taking photographs or I miss the moment. I like what is liminal, on the edge of perception. A faint note, a creature without a name, ghost trees caught in a fleeting light, and lost to darkness. The mysteries of the season as last summer's tokens linger and there are signs of spring well before winter has come.
RSS Feed