bewilderbrain

Tuesday 17th June 2025
Walk start time: 9.00am
Walk finish time: 10.16am
Walk area: River Taff, Pantygraigwen
Miles walked: 2.9

Today’s walk was veritable banquet of wildlife, and a testament to the glorious abundance of June. I hadn’t gone out expecting very much, rather, feeling somewhat low in both energy and spirits this morning, I had levered myself out of the door with no strong intent other than to get outside and feel better.

I start at a small stretch of woodland path bordering Graig hill, to get in an early dose of birdsong, as well as the instantly soothing tones of the running water from the culvert down the hill. I notice that the path is becoming quite overgrown at this time of year, and wonder again about the fact that I don’t see more people using it, given its easy respite from the traffic noise of the main road.

I am rewarded by the song of a Goldfinch, and soon after a fat pigeon flies a few feet from my head to land in a nearby tree. As a family, we have come to realise that a fat pigeon is a staple on any walk, one will always encounter one at some point; only recently we excitedly believed ourselves to have seen a small rabbit on a roundabout – it of course turned out to be a fat pigeon.

As enthusiasts of wildlife, we can be be dismissive of our pigeon species, yet the sound of a Wood Pigeon is one of my favourite things, and they can sometimes be surprisingly graceful in flight, as well as of course very comical to watch. So in celebration of all birds having interest, here is my unremarkable picture of a fat pigeon in a tree.

As I cross towards the river, overgrown brambly banks yield a small cluster of glorious pink blooms, dog rose I think, although sweet briar is apparently similar.

I am trying to walk quickly on the main road beside the river, as the road noise is intense, but I am stopped by the distinct swooping flight of several birds which quickly disappear from view.

Only a few birds fly like this, so I stop still and concentrate, are they House Martins? Swifts? As two fly back into view I can see the brown tones to their colouring, with the paler underbelly, Sandmartins! I am of course right next to the river, and as I watch their swooping display they disappear into some obvious nest holes in the stone riverbank.

I continue to watch them, fascinated, as at least three pairs dart in and out of the nest holes, clearly provisioning young chicks with the local dishes of the day. I have several attempts at photographing them, but alas, they are so incredibly quick….I just get the river with their nest holes above.

Further on, a duck fails abysmally to maintain an air of serenity, as it is pulled sideways and backwards in the current despite its clear attempts to make forward progress.

Before crossing the road, I stop to examine a patch of vivid Valerian growing in a bank. Such a particular shade, somewhere exactly between pink and red, it is also often seen in white varieties. The plant is abundant, hardy and can be seen everywhere at this time of year, by the sides of motorways, verges, embankments, beside streams. It seems amazing to me that a plant with such historically medicinal properties for a wide range of issues including stress and insomnia grows so casually and stoically around our countryside.

On the other side of the road, heading away from the main street, as I head towards the pretty stepped path which leads on from beneath a low stone bridge, a footpath sign pointing off into some undergrowth catches my eye.

Hmmm…where does that path go? I am a sucker for a footpath sign, especially if I have no idea where it goes, and perhaps even more so again if, like this one, the entranceway appears distinctly overgrown. I decide that a short attempted venture can’t do any harm..

Within a few metres it becomes it becomes clear that there is zero maintenance of this pathway, and that it is seldom used, but I decide to push on a little further in hopes of discovering where it goes. I pass a thick section of large and intrusive vegetation which I fear may be Japanese knotweed, and nearly turn back after extricating my trousers from the 10th bramble, but then I turn a corner and find myself in a squashy section of path pressed against a wire fence on my right hand side, with far reaching views across the valley.

As I arrive here, a battalion of sparrows arises suddenly from the trees and shrubs directly on the other side – their wing beats so close that I can almost feel the movement of the air. I have stumbled into a private domain where nature is used to being undisturbed.

I stop completely still and wait, as sparrow after sparrow flies back to the nearby trees in the stillness. A mixture of tree and house sparrows, there must be forty or fifty easily, spread over two or three surrounding trees, and some are close enough that I can watch their antics from branch to branch, seeing the insects and tiny caterpillars clutched in their beaks.

Somewhat reluctantly continuing on through the undergrowth, I turn another corner and am faced with a divergence in the pathway, each looking as unapproachable as the other.

I pick the second route, although there is no obvious pathway, if you look closely at the picture you can see that there is a road visible at the top, so clearly the disused route was once intended as shortcut back to civilisation.

Thankfully, while no actual path is visible, the undergrowth in this section is more ferns, assorted wildflowers and bindweed than it is bramble, or I may have turned back. The last stretch leading up to the street is literally just three feet high solid undergrowth, and spotting two men having a chat up on the road ahead of me I feel faintly ridiculous, trying to appear casual whilst appearing from a solid wall of greenery between two houses. Looking back at the pathway, there is no apparent pathway on which to look back…

With the now reassuring concrete of the roadside under my feet I head off at a brisk pace hoping no one else has noticed. Only to find a man watching me with a raised eyebrow a short time later after unthinkingly standing for some time with my whole head in a jasmine bush.

The jasmine creeps and climbs exuberantly over a raised front fence, full flowering, intense and euphorically scented, a stardust scattering of its abundant petals on the ground below. Inhaling one of the best smells in the world is worth a raised eyebrow as far as I’m concerned.

I pause to admire a common roadside staple, Fleabane, the exuberant and higgledy piggledy blooms of which always make me feel joyful, and instantly transport me to Cornwall, where I picture it adorning elderly stone walls in the idyllic Helford river valley. I soon have, if not my whole head this time, at least my nose, buried in another flower, a glorious yellow rose, bold and unapologetically heady in its wonderful summer scent.

In the next section of my walk the valley opens out on my right hand side, and as it does so I hear that distinctive magical call of swifts, as one flies within metres of my head. I stop for a while watching their incredible darting flights, successfully photographing some excellent expanses of grey sky before giving up and just watching them.

In the last section of my walk, I am afforded an opportunity to demonstrate the actual level of my botanical ignorance. As I walk past a descending slope of watery woodland on my right, under cover of the roadside trees, I breathe in a deep, wonderful scent which is almost impossible to describe. To me, it is instantly reminiscent of the much longer summers of childhood, where time became distorted and the laws of day and night, outside and in, sleeping and waking, were more fluid, where the powerful smells of the outside world of nature spoke to me of a world of possibilities and a barely containable excitement in the season.

The scent is strange, full, heady, but somehow almost dank? Florally dank and musty. It feels like the smell of the edge of a warm paddling pool mixed with the terrible squashed rose petal perfumes we would make as children. Like something that should be unpleasant but somehow isn’t, it’s quite wonderful. To me it smells of summer and excitement.

I stand on the edge of this woodland slope, breathing in the smell, then I notice beautiful white flowers in a tree. I don’t know or recognise them, I walk a bit further and the flowers continue, the smell continues. I put two and two together and stick my head in a flower – I have located the smell!

Overjoyed, I set about photographing it from every angle, flower and leaf detail, in order that I can enjoy finally identifying this elusive and enticing scent of a quintessential summer when I get home.

Well…it turns out ladies and gentleman, hangs head in mild embarrassment at not knowing this, my quintessential summer smell is none other than….

Privet.

Privet. A Privet hedge.

My scent of summer.

Okay, so that’s a pretty bloody obvious plant not to know, but you know, every day is a school day and all that. Apparently, not only is the plant controversial amongst gardening types for a variety of reasons, but its smell is also highly divisive, being something of a Marmite in the plant world. Some people hate it to the point of finding it offensive, others love it.

I don’t care if its privet, I’m standing by my senses and loving my mystical scent of summer.

The final part of my walk up through the woods is a bit of slog as the temperature outside rises…apparently we are in for a mini heatwave. But I’m British, so I’m ready for a cup of tea anyway. And today my walk, privet included, has been bloody brilliant.