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earthstar

~ a celebration of nature

earthstar

Tag Archives: mud

The Redshanks return

07 Tuesday Nov 2023

Posted by sconzani in birds

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Tags

bird on mudbank, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, mud, Redshank

I’ve only seen two so far, and both were foraging on the mudbanks outside Cardiff Bay Barrage, so a bit too distant for good photographs of the birds themselves. But I love the texture of those mudbanks, the way they reflect the light, the patterns made by the water moving through their sticky sludge, and the minimalist look of this Redshank grazing where the mud meets the water.

231107 redshank

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Tracks in the mud

08 Wednesday Mar 2023

Posted by sconzani in birds

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Tags

bird tracks in mud, birding, birdwatching, Black-headed gull, British birds, gulls searching for food, mud

After a morning’s rain, yesterday remained very dull and grey. Rather than let that put me off taking photos, I decided to use the conditions to my advantage, looking at scenes with a black-and-white eye rather than colour, focussing on shapes and textures. The huge banks of mud outside Cardiff Barrage are always interesting but my eye was caught in particular by the tracks being made across the flat areas of mud by Black-headed gulls searching for food. Their meandering twists and turns reminded me of a drunk returning home after a heavy night at the pub!

230308 gull tracks in mud

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Leaves as lungs

07 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by sconzani in autumn, leaves, weather

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Tags

fallen leaves, leaf art, mud, muddy leaves

I’m not actually a fan of mud. It clings to my shoes, leads to more frequent clothes washing, makes pathways impassable, occasionally causes me to slip and slide and fall over on my backside. But, when I noticed a patch of fallen leaves lying in mud, I rather liked how they looked, how the mud helped to highlight the veins. And, when I got home and looked more closely at my photographs, this one leaf looked to me like a lung. And so I manipulated the image, cropping the photo then flipping it horizontally and pasting the two parts together. Et voilà!

221107 muddy leaves

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Glorious mud

23 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by sconzani in geology, nature

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Tags

Barrage mud, Cardiff Barrage, Cardiff mud, mud

‘Mud, mud, glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me follow, down to the hollow
And there let me wallow in glorious mud.’

171123 mud

I never saw Cardiff Bay before the Barrage was built in the 1990s but, from photos I’ve seen, I believe much of the foreshore was a lot like this, as much of the coastline to the east of Cardiff still is.

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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