Happy New Year!

Many thanks to everyone who has visited my blog during 2014 and for all your lovely comments.



Wishing everyone a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year with many very magical wildlife moments.

A Frosty Late Afternoon Walk along Local Lanes

Yesterday D and I returned to some local lanes to do a circular walk that we did a month or so back.

It was one of those beautiful cold, frosty, sunny days. As we left the car the temperature was around three degrees centigrade but by the time we had completed the walk as the sun set it was only just one degree above freezing. Vegetation and leaves were still coated with frost.

The sun was already low when we started the walk.

Why do people dump litter? Goodness knows how many miles away the nearest Costa is - someone must just have decided to throw this out of a car window :(

Catkins are starting to form.

Frost-coated bracken.

The sun being so low and starting to set was giving a beautiful rosy glow to the trees and bushes.

Taking ages to compose the next shot!

A few remaining holly berries but

lots of ivy berries to provide winter food for birds.

Just one lone dandelion seen in flower during the walk.

This is the start of a walk that E and I did several years ago when I was doing a bird survey when we got totally and utterly lost on public footpaths.

Sunset

I've included below a few photos D took with the Canon SX50 HS partly because the sunset ones were a lot better than mine! and partly to show the usefulness of the zoom lens. I would never have been able to take the blue tit shot even if I had had the 70-300 lens on my camera.

There weren't too many birds around just blue tits, robins, blackbirds, wood pigeons and magpies. The pheasants and partridges seen last time had all disappeared although I was pleased to see 2 handsome cock pheasants on the way home that had been wily enough to escape the guns and pot.

Now Christmas is more or less out of the way I'll try and find time to read the Canon manual and try and take some photos myself. I had a bad cold and chest infection mid-December which was a pain to put it mildly as by the time I felt better I had less than a week until Christmas to catch up on 10 days housework, washing and ironing and Christmas baking and preparations so its been hectic!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas

A Festive Looking Baddesley Clinton

I had a day out with a friend last week and we visited Baddesley Clinton which was looking very festive!

The scarecrow theme from the summer has been continued and now we have Father and Mrs Christmas type scarecrows

along with a few of the reindeer.

The interior of the house had been decorated for a Victorian Christmas - I so wish I could show you more photos as it really was beautifully done. Usual problems with low light so most of the photos are a bit blurred - I don't think you will ever see a worse photo of a Christmas Tree but the tree itself had been so beautifully decorated it will at least give you an idea!

The ducks from the moat came to say hello - I think they were probably looking for food as they were much tamer than usual.

We had lunch in the restaurant - carrot and coriander soup and a piece of shortbread.

I loved these metalwork robins and pheasants for sale but they were a trifle expensive

so I contented myself with buying a half price hellebore. Hellebores never seem to do very well in our garden but I'll keep my fingers crossed with this one.



I'm sorry for the lack of natural history posts recently but I haven't used the moth trap for months and haven't had time to visit Marsh Lane or any other reserve recently. I am trying to find a few hours (although I suspect it may well have to wait until after Christmas) to read the new camera manual. Once I have mastered at least the basics I'll try and take some pictures of garden birds and find the time to go along to Marsh Lane.