The Best-Laid Plans...

Earlier in the week my brother Les and I visited Lynford Hall and its arboretum. We've been there before, of course, but we were tempted by the forecast of better weather in that part of Norfolk.

The Hall, which is now a hotel, is set in the Breckland, an area of sandy soils that is largely given over to forestry these days, though the area around the Hall has a variety of habitats - a small lake, the mixed trees in the arboretum and the gardens, a few meadows, a bit of surviving heathland. The sandy soils mean a lot less mud to tramp through at this time of year.

The beautiful, untouched landscape above looks a true haven for wildlife. You can't go there however; it's a military training area and the sound of gunfire rattled away in the distance. Despite this - and the rumble of tanks and low-flying helicopters - nature much prefers this area to what would seem more peaceful places.

These Mallards were as wary of slipping on the ice as I am these days. They were not the birds we had come to see however.

Those Hawfinches are back again this year (allegedly) but we failed to find them this time. We've seen them a couple of times before, which is a reasonable strike-rate for this elusive species. (Incidentally, I've recently begun putting links on birds I mention, for those of you who want to know what they look like - remind me if I forget).

Luckily neither Les or I are the kind of bird-watchers who get upset if we fail to make contact with the birds we seek. There are always things to enjoy about even quite familiar birds like Yellowhammers, Marsh Tits and Siskins, which were all much easier to locate.

The weather did not play fair with us this time and, although we had occasional splashes of sunshine, showers became increasingly heavy and frequent. As we sat in the car eating our sandwiches the rain lashed down on the windscreen, we could only reminisce about the times we'd visited in the past:

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When swans cruised among the lily-pads....

....sunlight beat down on the forest tracks.....

....baby Highland cows grazed in the meadow....

....and flowers bloomed.

In Autumn the Arboretum is so colourful....

....fungi appear beneath the trees....

....the low sun angles through the branches...

....and a Nuthatch grabs some of the food left on the parapet of the old bridge.

Till we start to approach winter once more.

Take care.

Seasonal Surprise

We'd been happily drifting along on the dwindling current of Autumn for many weeks, when suddenly we awoke one morning to a sharp frost coating every surface with a sparkling rime.

I picked up my camera and stole guiltily past working folks who were scraping ice from their windscreens to see what could be found.

Flowers exhibited a certain surprised beauty.

And many more leaves had fallen overnight and now rested on old trees that had long ago succumbed to the inevitable progress of time.

I also took a quick snap of this curious frost-pattern on the wing of one of my neighbours' cars. Apart from making it a bit clearer for you to see I haven't done anything to change its appearance. 

Then next morning...

I looked out and saw there'd been a couple of inches of overnight snow. What used to happen every year has now become something of a rarity in this part of the country. Children of all ages have to make the most of it, so I was up before dawn to explore this wonderland.

The warm light from the spotlights combines prettily with the blue light of pre-dawn to make a nice picture of the village church.

I made my way back through the main street of the village. I used to work at the school just around the corner and recall the excitement of the children on days like this. Many of them were wheelchair-users and I also remember the exasperated look of the woman who cleaned the building as they trundled in and out, leaving trails of dirty snow behind them!

One of the large houses in the village has a permanent display of topiary "Christmas trees" which look even better with a coating of snow.

Another shrub exhibiting sculptural shapes as I made my way to the community woodland.

It was the kind of good sticky snow that clings to every branch.

A flat bridge leads over the little chalk-stream known, rather grandly, as the River Mel. The little gate is the entrance to somebody's garden.

Here's the river itself, reflecting the leaves that still hang on to the branches in this sheltered spot.

I was framing up a shot of the tree which stands beyond a patch of rough ground when I spotted a Buzzard perched on the topmost twig. When I got home I noticed another bird, lower down in the tree, which may well be the other member of the pair. It's quite normal to see a Buzzard around here. 

(The Common Buzzard [Buteo buteo] of the UK and Europe is a bird of prey. Despite its impressive size it mostly feeds on earthworms, beetles and carrion. In Scotland it's jokingly called "the Tourist's Eagle", since visitors are often convinced that they've seen a Golden Eagle nonchalantly sitting at the side of the road).

The path leads on beside the stream.

Now where would that picture appear on a calendar? Winter snow and Autumn foliage.

Three sheep wonder just what's happened overnight, hiding all the grass and leaving them nothing to eat but fallen leaves.

Here's one they've missed.

Time for me to make my way back home for a cup of hot chocolate.

(It's now a couple of days later and the snow is still hanging around; that's something that rarely happens these days. It's supposed to be warming up at the weekend).

Take care.

The Man Who Walks In The Fog

 I must admit I rather like a good fog...

Partly it's that feeling of being out and about while everyone else is hiding indoors, but also fog and mist have a transforming effect, changing even the most familiar landscapes into something a little different. We all need a bit of variety sometimes.

England has a reputation of being a land of fogs, especially in winter. I blame Charles Dickens; he used fog in his novels as a device to suggest that something was wrong in society. Then along came Claude Monet and managed to make it look beautiful, despite the number of people who were dying from lung disease. It wasn't the fog that was the problem, but the amount of smoke that London produced at that time. Even Ella Fitzgerald sang about foggy days in London town.

The bald meteorological facts, however, show that we're far from being the foggiest place on earth. Thick fogs lasting for the whole day (like we had last weekend) only occur once every couple of years or so. And here in the countryside the fog is damp but largely benign.

But why would anyone want to go out taking photographs on a foggy day? You might think that fog just obscures the land, but it can reveal it too. By getting rid of all the distant distractions, it focusses the eye on the here and now. It cuts out all the clutter in the background of the scene. We can do with that as we travel through life: getting rid of all the noisy and complicated details and just concentrating on what's within our reach.

Fog also softens the hard edges of the world, making it seem a more gentle, kindly place. It's good to be cocooned in in my foggy blanket for a while in these crazy times. So it was that my mind was far from dwelling upon ghosts and cruelty in Victorian London as I idled along the footpaths and byways of rural Cambridgeshire.

I set out on two separate days, with two separate locations in mind that might make some nice photos: one yielded no photos and the other had no fog! That's the mystery and unpredictability of fogginess. But along the way I found other things I was not expecting.

One of the less welcome surprises was a huge fallen tree that completely blocked "the forgotten path". I call it that because twenty-odd years ago it was set out as a "riverside walk" with signs and information boards, but slowly the signs have disappeared and the way has become overgrown. I don't even know if I should really be there.

But anyway my progress was halted by this fallen tree, an obstacle I would have once scrambled over with ease. Nowadays I choose a long uncomfortable escapade amongst thorns and brambles to find an alternative route and eventually came out at the edge of a field. Luckily this led me precisely to where I wanted to go.

You may have noticed that the pictures don't match up very well with the text so far. Exactly so, fog is always playing tricks like that!

I ended up walking several miles, at times with the visibility down to less than fifty metres. It didn't matter at all, because as I walked the way opened up clearly before me, as it always does. That seems to be another life-lesson; although the way ahead may be unclear, if you keep plodding on all will be revealed in good time. 

So lets step out into the fog : it's really rather pleasant.

Take care.

Four Foggy Ones And A Frank Reply

Just four pictures taken on a recent foggy morning, all within a few hundred yards along a local footpath:

We haven't had much music on the blog lately, but we'll remedy that right now. Chris Wood is one of the quiet men of English folk music. He sings new songs and old traditional ones too, but this is a poem by Frank Mansell, the Cotswold poet, which has been set to music. Lets listen to "The Cottager's Reply"....

Take care.

Walks With An Imaginary Dog

While I was out walking a few months ago I met a family with a little girl. "Where's your dog?" she demanded. When I told her I didn't have a dog she turned to her mother and said, "He must have an imaginary dog!"

The only people I saw on my rainy walk this morning were two men with dogs. So lets say I had an imaginary dog - I wouldn't want you to think I'm completely mad.

If you want to meet my imaginary dog, just wait there in the rain; he'll be along soon.

Take care.