Autumn walks and auroras

Trimina

I’m still amazed to have been able to visibly see them with the naked eye. I wasn’t expecting anything in the evening then, after a call from my dad and a quick nighttime walk they appeared above my head in my area, so far south than they’re usually seen.





I even managed to shoot them with the Pleiades in the second photo. You can see the small clusters of stars on the right.

I thought I was going insane looking so intensely in the sky for a glimpse of green or red. It turns out I was pretty lucky in keeping patient out in the cold. I actually saw them in May of this year in my area, but they came off ghostly and grey with only a tinge of the colour. The camera did all the work, but this time their colours truly came out, and I enjoyed seeing my town in shades of green and red for a few minutes.





These photos are from May and you can see such a difference. These ones were harder to spot all the different colours. You can definitely spot them though, even if they’re grey they move around very differently to clouds, in an almost eerie type of fading.

Autumn has always been my favourite season, but in the past few years the darkness started to really affect my mood, and I found myself waiting for the long days of summer to come back. Recently things have been changing, I’m quite liking the dark and I find it comforting whenever I go for walks, it keeps me calm. Sometimes with the sun out all day it can feel super invasive like everyone is watching me through their windows when I walk around the street.

I’ve spent most of my walks away from people and in the fields, I’ve felt really spoilt by the good weather we’ve been having, it makes it so I can actually walk through the grass without melting into marshland.






I think this autumn has been quite beautiful in the countryside. I even spotted my first batch of mushrooms earlier this week in the form of shaggy inkcaps. The white lumps are the young mushrooms, they look very ordinary. As they grow older and open up to their later stages, they start to melt and let out a dark goo like the last photo, hence their name.

On the side I’ve been trying to learn on identifying the different plants that grow on my area. I’ve spotted so many and am happy to say I can identify quite a few of them in my area. It’s fun during this time since it’s harvest season and you see so many edible berries and fruits like: sloe berries, crab apples, blackberries, elderberries and loooaaads of hazelnuts. Shaggy inkcaps in their young forms are actually great edible mushrooms too! But I’d advise to do lots of research and speak to professionals that know your area well before harvesting any😳

It makes you open to the world a lot more too. I’ve know there are things out there not to touch like stinging nettles, but really once you start learning about identifying plants there are so many common things that grow everywhere around us that can do us quite some harm. And often they blend in with the rest of the scenery, you truly never know what’s lurking behind the beauty.

I’d love to go more in depth of things I’ve seen butI feel like I’m rambling. Take away is there’s lots to spot right now so I’d recommend taking sometime to walk around your area and seeing what you can find.

I’m hoping if we ever get another Aurora alert that you will have clear enough skies in your area to see them☺️

ella

These are incredible pictures @Trimina! How lucky you are to have seen the lights too. You clearly have such great knowledge of the world and nature around you- please do keep us updated on what you spot later into autumn, it’s such a beautiful time of year 🍂

Amy22

Your so lucky to get to see the northern lights and I bet it was an amazing photo opportunity too!. I missed them but in my area I think there's a lot of light pollution so it would harder to spot it but I also was sleeping too 😂 so slept on the aurora borealis. However these are beautiful pictures

kaii

These are such pretty pictures @Trimina! I will forever be jealous of people who got to see the northern lights with their bare eyes, and it's so so cool that you saw the pleiades as well! And it's so nice to hear your thoughts about how you feel about autumn - I also find that the darkness that autumn brings can alter my mood, but I've been getting used to it, and I'm glad that you've been finding comfort in the seasons nowadays!

And your walks in nature sound so lovely, you're so right in saying that walking in nature can make you more open to the world, it's amazing that you've been identifying the different kinds of plants growing in your area - I should definitely do this next time I go out for a walk, it would be a nice little activity to do each time

I'd honestly love to hear more about what other things you've seen

Trimina

Thank you @ella! I might keep this up for the rest of the season, I have so many photos and musings to share so look forward to an update☺️

Trimina

@Amy22 oh bless, that’s the only issue when stuff like this happens here theres too many lights around everywhere or bad weather! And thank you, again I’m just grateful I managed to see them 😭

Only thing I would recommend is try and find somewhere dark even like in a play park.
I took many of these in my area that’s slightly away from town but loads of streetlamps and just found dark corners when I could. I didn’t stay out too long either I went out every now and then from 10pm-12am. But again if you need to wake up early it is an issue, if only when the lights come they could come earlier and a little brighter for everyone to see!

Amy22

Trimina wrote: »

@Amy22 oh bless, that’s the only issue when stuff like this happens here theres too many lights around everywhere or bad weather! And thank you, again I’m just grateful I managed to see them 😭

Only thing I would recommend is try and find somewhere dark even like in a play park.
I took many of these in my area that’s slightly away from town but loads of streetlamps and just found dark corners when I could. I didn’t stay out too long either I went out every now and then from 10pm-12am. But again if you need to wake up early it is an issue, if only when the lights come they could come earlier and a little brighter for everyone to see!

They look super amazing too!. Yeah I'd say definitely later in the evening is when to take the pics too. The thing is where I live I'm right by a Morrisoms car park so the lights are on in the night so it is hard to see stars and stuff. They turn off at around 11 ish to 12 am ish but by then I'm fast asleep haha otherwise I wouldn't sleep. I don't sleep much anyways but yeah 😂

Trimina

Thank you so much @kaii 🫂

I’m so glad you agree with me about the seasons, I hope you’ve been coping with it well. Make sure to get regular sunshine when you can! With it being darker earlier theres a higher chance you’ll be able to see them since apparently we’re at a peak for solar storms ☺️ hoping that you can seem them someday!

I’d definitely recommend with identifying stuff, it’s super easy to get into it too. I recommend watching some videos on YouTube, I usually watch from fieldstudy or wildfoodsuk. There’s some really easy stuff to spot like blackberries, apples and hawthorn, the latter you see everywhere hedging around our farmlands. Start from there and naturally it can lead you to learning about more, we have a lot of plants with folklore here on the UK ☺️ so lots of spooky and cool things to learn about. I’ll definitely write more about this on future posts ❤️

sinead276

what beautiful pictures - especially the first one of the northern lights - they look so bright and clear there

ebyrne556

Love these photos im sad I missed it but hopefully nxt time

kaii

@Trimina, thank you so so much! I hope you’ve been getting plenty of sunshine too - I actually went out for a walk this morning and it felt so refreshing to be outside and I loved the feeling of sunshine on my back! And thank you, I sure hope I’ll be able to see the lights one day - I’m usually at home in the evenings and there’s lots of lamposts and shops where I live, so I definitely had a low chance of seeing the lights then (and I think I was sleeping at the time hahah). I’ll be sure to go to a place where it’s dark! Fingers crossed for more northern lights!

And thank you so much for recommending me YouTube videos to look at! I’ll be sure to have a look at these! When I went for my walk today, I started to notice plants in my area that I became curious about - I think identifying plants will be so fun for future walks, and if I do end up going the same route for my walks, I won’t be bored each time since I’ll be identifying more and more plants as well as continue being curious about new ones I encounter!

I really look forward to your future posts!