Autumn colours at Westonbirt Arboretum

Each autumn I make a pilgrimage to an arboretum in England to photograph the autumn colours. I started doing this in 2010 when visiting Winkworth arboretum with the London Flickr meetup group.

For 2017 I decided to venture further out to Westonbirt Arboretum. It’s a longer drive, but nice to see a new park with a different variety of plants. Still, it’s more spread out so you have more to explore.

Long leaves of a tree are silhouetted against direct sunlight.
A close macro photo of a light orange maple leaf.

I’m particularly fond of maples and sadly Westonbirt doesn’t have all that many - so this year’s photos are more muted.

A close macro photo of a beige maple leaf
Many yellow-orange maple leaves are lit up in sunlight against a dark background.

Autumn colours only appear for a brief window, which is hard to balance. You want to wait for a nice sunny day, but wait too long and you miss them. They also vary quite a bit across the UK - so a more southern arboretum will likely have better colours earlier in the year than a more northern one.

I was probably a few days early for the peak of Westonbirt’s colours - but I went when the weather was glorious, which made it worthwhile.

Several green maple leaves are lit up in sunlight against a dark background.
A close macro photo of some fine gree branches.
A dark photo of some dark red maple leaves.
A macro photo of a tree branch with small plants growing out of it.
Many small green maple leaves against a green background.
A wide angle photo of a very tall tree with two colourful maple trees at the base, one orange, one red.

Shot at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire.