A Passing

[milo]

It carried scent of ferns, unfurled a smell
of loose barked silver birch and stretching oaks.
Then dallied by the poplar's narrow strokes
and wooed a hermit thrush that trilled along
on branch; its spotted breast so proud in song.
The parted bluebells swayed, within the glade
as chorused foxglove sang aloud in shade,
the mottled woodland wrapped me in its spell.

L1 - 'scent of ferns' reads particularly strange as well as 'a smell', perhaps something like "It blew a scent of ferns, unfurled the smell'.
L2 - 'oaks have a smell?' I know when you cut them or burn them they do, but I would be hard-pressed to identify with the smell of a live oak tree.
L3, L4 are good.
L5 - 'on branch is strange and it is filler as well.
L6 - swayed in the glade might be too dr seusish
L7, L8 good

The years, like winds of old have bled away
and with them flew the softness of the trees.
now terracotta houses rise like sails.
and sewerage pipes are threaded through the brae.
No more the wooded hills, no more the breeze.
No more summer's dell, no more the vales.

L1 - 'winds of old' seems too Victorian, it is pretty non-specific as well.
L2 - The tree's softness flew?
The rest reads fine.

Your Octet reads like a very specific time more than just 'in the past' as your sestet suggests. It gives me some confusion in the read but I am not even really sure how you would fix it.

---

i pronounce sewerage as sew ridge

Overall, you have done a good job with the descriptive and the reportage. I like it, billy, I think you have the makings of a good sonnet.