Dun Belted Galloway

My edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) describes the word "dun" as "Of a dull or dingy brown colour; now esp. dull greyish brown, like the hair of the ass and mouse" and suggests it may derive from the Old English "dun(n), the Irish and Gaelic "donn" or the Welsh "dwn". Consequently it is used to describe one of the three colours that feature in Belted Galloway cattle, the others being red (i.e. orange brown) and black. I've seen plenty of Black Belted Galloways, but no reds, and, until recently no duns. However, on a recent family visit to the summit of May Hill, Gloucestershire, I noticed a Dun Belted Galloway cow in the bracken with some black examples of the breed.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Cattle as habitat managers

Walking through Woorgreens Nature Reserve in the Forest of Dean, an area of heathland and a lake, we came across six young Highland cattle. Some were the traditional ginger/brown, the others black. They were introduced in 2019 to restore, create and maintain the heathland by grazing the bramble, coarse grasses and gorse, as well as restricting the bracken by trampling it. This will allow a wider range of plant species to flourish and attract a greater variety of insects, amphibians and birds.

A few weeks earlier, when the cloud was low, we had seen the Belted Galloways of May Hill going about similar work. These cattle, however, sported bells, something we haven't seen in Britain before.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Photographing dog walkers

I frequently find myself photographing dog walkers. It's not that I'm a "doggy" person out to capture the variety of species (both dog and human) who fall into this category. It's simply that we do frequent some of the haunts of dog walkers and they are often useful as human interest or a visual focus in a photographic composition. As we approached the clump of trees that mark the summit of May Hill in Gloucestershire I noticed a few people passing between them silhoutted against the sky. I took several speculative shots with a long lens looking for a contrasty composition. This one, with the dog that didn't want to be restricted by is lead, and the owner who was getting tangled up in it, pleased me most. Not least for the humour of the situation.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Sunlit woodland

As we walked through some woodland on the slopes of May Hill in Gloucestershire we came upon an area of coppiced sweet chestnuts. It's unusual enough to come upon coppicing these days - trees seem to be grown and cropped like cabbages in most places. But why sweet chestnuts, we wondered, as we stopped to get a shot of the sunlight penetrating the trees on the path ahead? I couldn't come up with an answer and I must have a trawl of the internet to see if I can discover the reason. Some of the coppicing is just visible at the left of the photograph.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Stained glass and May Hill

Some of Gloucester Cathedral's more recent stained glass is by the artist Tom Denny. In 2013 he made windows for the south ambulatory chapel in a semi-abstract style that I find difficult to like. More appealing, to me, is that commissioned in 2016 celebrating the life of Ivor Gurney, the famous Gloucester-born poet and composer. This is more representational, and though I wish there were more lead cames dividing up the panels, I do like the drawing, compositions and colour schemes of these works.

I also like the appearance of May Hill in the background of a couple of panels. This relatively low summit can be seen from many parts of western Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and eastern Wales. What makes it noticeable is the cluster of trees on the summit (itself an Iron Age hill fort) that were replenished in 1887 in celebration of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee and in 1977 for Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee.  I can see the summit and trees from my living room window 5.5 miles away. One recent morning I took this photograph at sunrise with what I call my bird-watching camera at maximum zoom (2000mm - 35mm equiv.) equivalent to a 40X telescope.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2 (top photograph)