Sunny winter walk in Coombe Wood

This afternoon I couldn't resist a walk in the sunshine, except the sun was so low there wasn't much of it spilling through the trees low enough and most of my walk was in the shade - but it was lovely to see the amazing patches of blue sky.

Beech nuts over the car park. 

Beautiful clear reflections today - hardly any green bubbles.

These are the tiniest cones - they're about the size of small peas.

Sun shining on a tree trunk twined with live and dead ivy. I'm surprised how beautiful the dead leaves look in the sunshine.

I hope this works - it's the first time I've included a short video. The ripples from the waterfall were making stripes of light that were reflecting from the water, run up the rocks.

Quite a contrast - just a few bright red leaves against all the green.

Bare red stems.

 Magnolia buds and blue sky. 

 Grass seeds glittering in the sunlight. 

More and more bare patches as the plants in the prairie bed die back.

There hasn't been much of a breeze lately - a deep circle of leaves has formed under this tree.

Catkin-like seeds. 

Stags horn tree (?) flower 

Masses of winged seeds. 

Sunlit leaves. 

There was a strong smell of freshly dug earth - I wondered where it was coming from and noticed that an animal had been digging among the moss by the side of the path.

On my walk on Tuesday I noticed some memorial flowers had been left by a tree, - today, in a different place, I found this woven heart pinned to the ground with metal u-shaped pegs.

The sunlight was soft enough and in the right direction, to illuminate these strange buds/pods (?) on the tree that had huge leaves (the leaves are all on the ground underneath the tree now).

 A camelia has come out. 

A garland of berries draped over bare branches. 

 Australian pine looking quite healthy. 

I usually focus on small details but I found myself gazing up at bare trees and the lovely patches of blue sky.

Masses of seeds. 

A bird squawked noisily overhead. 

All that remains of the spindle berries on the smaller shrub.

Several branches have been relocated. One in the middle of the lawn, several on top of a hedge and the ones that were sticking out of the beech tree on Tuesday have all gone except for one which is on the ground near the tree.

Gorgeous sky - it looked like perfect conditions for a good sunset later on.

Azalea buds. 

I can't resist a few teasels with their curls - like natures calligraphic flourishes.

Another quick look at the sky before heading home. 

I was right about the sunset later on. 

Thank you very much for joining me.