On Friday Ed afternoon and I visited Sutton Park for the first time this year. Sutton Park is a little bit too far out of the city to be considered ‘local’ and so we hadn’t been since December when Birmingham was put in Tier 4 and then a national lockdown. I took my long lens with me, hoping I might see the ponies, and when we arrived at Little Bracebridge Pool found two of them bathing in the water. It has been a dream of mine to see the horses bathing in the lake, but I didn’t think it’d be something I witnessed as the times of day I am there are usually quite busy, and to access the lake the ponies need to cross the main footpath from the heathland. I was surprised to see that they still have their winter coats, but then again it’s been quite a cold start to spring this year.
Every year I take the same photos in the same places. Blossom season is my favourite time of year, and after a childhood of moving every eighteen months to four years with my dad’s job, as an adult I have come to really appreciate the beauty of living in a place for many consecutive seasons and knowing the way the light will fall on my favourite haunts. I love that I have years and years of blossom photos taken in this same square, charting my progress from absolute beginner to where I am now. I love that I know the square’s best angles, and the best times of day to photograph it. It doesn’t make it boring for me, but rather it’s a great source of comfort. I know this city, it is my city, and it looks so beautiful in spring.
On my walk yesterday afternoon I spotted this moss which I think I’ve identified as swan’s neck thyme moss (Mnium Hornum) illuminated by the late afternoon sun. I didn’t have my camera on me, so I went back today with a 50mm lens fitted with a macro close up filter and provided some entertainment for two men in a van who couldn’t work out why I was crouched down on the side of the street taking photos of an otherwise unremarkable stone wall.
