SPRING 2007- part 2: April - a bustle in the hedgerow!

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"If there's a bustle in your hedgerow
Don't be alarmed now -
It's just a spring clean for the May Queen" - Led Zeppelin, circa. 1971

April 2007 will long be remembered by those who pay attention to such things as the month in which Spring came early, with Summer hot on its heels! Day upon day of blue skies, sunshine and warmth, to the extent that those relying on springs for their water supply began to have concerns about running out - this in a traditionally very wet country! Apart from two localised afternoon thunderstorms, which I both intercepted, on 28th March and 15th April, and a single night of steady rain, this has been an exceptionally dry month. However, that rain, followed by more Summer-type warmth, brought forth the best display of Spring flowers I have seen for a long time. So I'll start with some of these, from the Dyfi Valley and all within a short distance of Machynlleth......

These woods, by the Aberdyfi road, never fail to produce! Yet they are tricky to capture in a way that suggests the feeeling of being there on a sunny afternoon. Early to mid-afternoon is the best time, on a very sunny day - any earlier and the sun is "overhead", any later and there are too many long shadows.....
Elsewhere, the hedges and roadside banks were a blaze of colour, from the deep yellows of celandines with the snow-white wood anenomes....
....to the cheerful contrasts given by these primroses and violets.....
...or these bluebells and greater stitchworts! Spring - the season of renewal - is always a powerful time. Change sweeps across the landscape with unstoppable force. In a few short weeks, the tired browns and greys of late winter give way to an explosion of life. It is little wonder that most people seem to cheer up a bit! Now for those thunderstorms....
Of the March 28th storm I can just say that I caught it whilst doing some geological fieldwork in the Borders district: it was unphotogenic but listening to the thunder rolling about the hills is always a great pleasure! A very hazy April 15th saw sea-fog creeping up the Dyfi Valley to bring a cool chill to barbecue-goers. With some instability forecast over the Cambrian Mountains, and clearer skies (and therefore warmth) to my east, I jumped in the truck and set off. Sitting up on the top of the mountain road, I watched convective towers struggling to build in my area. It was clear that moisture was lacking and before they could get going they would collapse from below. To my north a line of towers were doing a better job of persistence. They extended a little further west, flanking out to meet the moist air of the sea-breeze and perhaps, I thought, tapping into it. They therefore looked a fair bet for a storm, so I tracked northwards towards them, crossing the A470 at Caersws and pushing across country on minor roads towards Llanfair Caereinion. The photo above shows my approach route just N of Caersws, and the towering cumulus through the haze (last word is the relevant one!)....
The best photo of the chase came a little later. Crepuscular rays beam down between the flanking towers to the now building storm, with the wind turbines of Mynydd Clogau in the foreground. It was getting very gloomy....
By late afternoon a thunderstorm had developed on this line of towers. The first thunder was heard to the north of Llanfair Caereinion, with the core of the storm in the Llanfyllin area. I arrived here just after the core had drifted away northwards. Big pools of muddy water were everywhere. Distant thunder still boomed away but visually the thing was a mess - as can be seen here in this shot of its western edge. I turned westwards, for home, via Llyn Vyrnwy and Bwlch y groes...
Bwlch y groes is the highest tarmac road in Wales. The top of the pass is 545 metres (or 1788 feet in old money) above sea-level. From the car-park at the top, the sun was setting through the haze. Aran Fawddwy is the peak on the L. Not the most spectacular of chases, but it took me through some interesting new places, I got to know another little slice of Mid-Wales, and at least one decent photo was to be had!
Last one from this month, taken one afternoon from a layby overlooking Cardigan Bay. Crepuscular rays again - they always make a good subject for the camera. There are other photos, but in order to include some of the flower ones and make this page just about downloadable in dial-up, I have left them out. For reasons best known to whatever computer processors do, images with a lot of greenery in them are very difficult to compress as JPEGS. Even at fairly low quality they are still disproportionally big filesizes. But nothing represents Spring for me so much as the flowers, so they get the vote to stay! May has arrived with cool, wet and blustery weather. The rain has been most welcome, more so than usual! With the Atlantic once again in charge of our weather, hopes are that I might get a good storm or two this month, but as ever, time will tell...
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