I am an ecologist and a composer of guitar based instrumental melodies signed to the Real Music label in California. I like to write about my work, music and nature conservation and how it all comes together. I try not to write about things I don't know much about.
A medieval sailor’s chapel of ease dating to the 14th Century on a lonely headland on the West Wales coast. If you look in the centre of the picture below you can just make out the white gable end above the beach. This place, Mwnt (pronounced munt), is also the site of an unsuccessful Flemish invasion in 1155 and its defeat was long afterwards celebrated on the first Sunday in January as “Sul Coch y Mwnt” (Red Sunday of Mwnt), as a consequence of the bloodshed on that day.
Photo: Mike Alexander
See more fabulous images of Wales on Mike Alexander’s website www.scapeimages.com
A rare splash of green in an otherwise seemingly endless red rock landscape in the depths of Utah, a place so quiet and still all you can hear is the gentle swirls and eddies in the water as the mighty Colorado River wanders off on its ancient path.
It’s been a while since our little jaunt from east to west across America came to an end in San Francisco. It was really just an extended family holiday but travelling across a continent of such magnificent landscapes and amazing towns and cities always leaves you changed a little.
It’s easy for us to criticise the countries that we live in and to take the incredible privilege of doing so for granted, but when I think back to standing at the Ground Zero Memorial in New York City on this anniversary of 9/11, and when I hear in the news everyday stories of madness and destruction, lack of human rights and freedoms in so many other countries in the world, I realise that America, along with so many other countries where freedom and democracy are regraded as a basic human right, is a pretty good place.
Ground Zero Memorial, New York City
Those spectacular American landscapes and landforms, more than any others that I’ve seen, remind us that the world is very old, much older than any holy book would have you believe. They were there before we arrived, and they’ll be there long after we’ve gone. Homo sapiens in all of his/her arrogance doesn’t appear to be capable of realising that the universe isn’t all about tiny, insignificant us, it couldn’t be less so. But beautiful mountains, plains, lakes, rivers and seas at least give us the chance to see the world as it really is, if only we take the time to look.
Sequoia National Park is one of my favourite places in the world. The giant trees are the biggest and some of the oldest living things on Earth, and my attempts to convey their colossal size were scuppered by my limited photographic skills.
If you’ve never been to this beautiful National Park in the high Sierras of California, I couldn’t recommend it more highly, it is absolutely stunningly beautiful.
This is General Sherman, the biggest living thing on the planet. Take it from me it is a giant of breathtaking proportions and truly awe inspiring. The light in these mountains is wonderful, and the air is thick with the pungent smell of pine. Walking amongst these great trees is something I’ll never forget.
Mike Howe 