Clyne Park and Swansea Bay

Hello again!

Surprisingly last night turned out be pretty nice, after it emptied down for most of the, so i grabbed the camera and headed out. It was high tide around 7.30, so the sea had pushed in the waders close to shore.

I grabbed a few nice snaps of the oystercatchers heading out over the bay, and even the brown gulls look quite handsome in flight. Leave them and just get rid of the herring gulls i say ! In fine weather its pretty hard to beat the beautiful sweep of swansea bay, with its eclectic mix of families, runners, cyclists all enjoying the sea air, and the classic view of mumbles lighthouse.

Then it was over to Swansea's best park in my opinion - Clyne Gardens with its amazing collection of Rhododendron, Red Cedar, Oak and an many rare species, many of which were introduced into the park by Charles Darwin.

Clyne is great for photography as it offers so many different types of light with its various tree cover and dense canopy. There is areally nice brook which runs from the Japanese bridge and falls, right through the whole park, through a brief reedbed by the Lido at Blackpill and out to sea. I set the camera at a slow shutter speed (around F20 for the camera geeks!) and got some nice ghosting of the water.

Clynes a special place for me. My grandfather was the head ranger here for a number of years, and my mothers ashes are buried under one of the Mountain Ash ( or Rowan) tree. So coming here is always both tranquil and rather sad.

I continued around the park and took a few more snaps as the light faded, one of the famous Japanese bridge.

Before heading for a relaxing beer outside the Woodman, i dug out the macro lens and tried to snap a spider inside a rose. I really couldn't get what I wanted as the bug was so small and tucked away pretty tightly and i couldnt get the right settings in the fading However, using the flash i got this really weird shot, which illuminated the whole body of the spider - almost to the point where you can see through it!!!! A nice cold Stella finished off a chilled-out evening and some OK pics. Later...Stu