The Dragons Breath flows down the Severn for St Davids Day
I was excited on Saturday morning. I was up at stupid o'clock and driving along the M4. I was heading east, and I had planned a rendezvous with the rising sun. The skies above Newport were crystal clear on the eastern horizon; there was a band of orange. I intended to fly my drone and capture a sunrise and felt good about it. That did not mean things would turn out good, but it was going be a really fortuitous day. It was St David's day and also my Grandfathers birthday - he has longed passed but I can still remember him well and it has been said I am very much like him. He had a keen interest in all things, and I used to love sitting with him reading encyclopaedias. So I was feeling lucky as well as being excited.
I had decided to return to a location very near to the Prince of Wales Bridge (aka as the Second Severn crossing) at Caldicott Pill near Sudbook. I have flown my drones here many times with varying results. Sometimes the sunrise turns out good; other times the weather is poor and clouds gather on the horizon. It can be a bit of a lottery, but I think that's the fun of photography: you never know exactly what you are going to get, and you just have to go with the flow and make the most of things.
When I arrived at my take-off spot, there was a very heavy frost. It was icy cold, and my fingers were already getting numb. The skies were crystal clear and a lovely blue, but out there on the Severn Estuary, the waters were covered in a blanket of white mist that made the view quite murky.
The eastern horizon also had a layer of low cloud that threatened to put a stop to a good sunrise, but my gut feeling was the sun would burn through this layer of mist.
Up went the drone on my first test flight. I like to do this about thirty minutes before sunrise to test out the atmospheric conditions, do some safety checks and take some test pictures to see what angles will be good. When doing this, I noticed that from about 100 meters up, I could only see the very top of the supporting struts of the First Severn Crossing as it was shrouded in thick mist. The mist was flowing down river from it and heading quickly towards the Prince of Wales Bridge.
As the sunrise approached, the mist was getting thicker and thicker. This phenomenon is known as a temperature inversion and often occurs when cold air gets trapped under warmer air above it. I usually see atmospherics like this when I visit the Blorenge for a sunrise, and its known up in the mountains as the Dragon's Breath. At that moment, I imagined a huge Red Dragon was roaring in celebration of St David's day on the First Severn Crossing, and its breath was flowing down the middle of the estuary.
Timing can be very critical when flying a drone, as you need to be in a good position in the sky when the cool stuff happens. Sunrise would soon be upon me, so I landed the drone and swapped in a new battery. It was six minutes before sunrise when it took off.
This time, I flew the drone to a spot I had planned out over the dark waters of the Severn Estuary.
As soon as it had reached about 60 meters, I was stunned to see how conditions had changed so quickly. The mist was like a Tsunami now pouring down the centre of the estuary and was flooding over the Prince of Wales Bridge between the towers that hold the suspension pylons. The sun was already burning through clouds on the horizon.
I must admit that from that moment on, the views were incredible and something I have wanted to capture for ages.
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Update
The video has been published.
Very nice images, Blair. Well done, effort rewarded.
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