Tales from the Blenheim Woods

The trees of the Blenheim Estate are, as always, spectacular at this time of year.

With a bright morning, and clouds and rain forecast for later in the day, we thought it a good moment to set off early to see this year's autumn display. Some windy days, we were afraid, might strip the trees of their leaves. Indeed, some trees were already almost bare, and there were plenty of dry and rustling leaves to shuffle through. Enough foliage remained on many trees, however, to make for a lovely seasonal walk.

It was hard to choose a single photograph for Blipfoto out of the many I took. At each turn of the walk, and in every direction, there are fine sights to enjoy. I decided that, instead of just mounting a few extras on Twitpic, I would make

a gallery of Blenheim Park photographs

from a good proportion of those I took this morning.

According to yesterday's Independent "the long drought of spring, and the wet and cool of the late summer that followed, have combined to produce an outstanding autumn leaf display" this year. The colours of the leaves result from the loss of green chlorophyll, which allows carotenoids (yellows, oranges and browns) and anthocyanins (fiery reds, bronzes, purples) to show themselves.

Chemistry is eveywhere, my friends!