Another Day, Another Walk

Exactly the same but different. I left home early once again, enjoyed the way the day dawned, then found some little details that interested me on my homeward journey, just like in my last post. But I headed in the opposite direction and there was no mist. Lets go!

The full moon shone through a sky that was clear as a bell. And that's the name of the thatched cottage, the Old Bell, and long ago it was one of the villages many pubs.

But soon I was heading across the fields beneath a fiery sky. It was at its best a full half-hour before sunrise proper. The tractor ruts were full of ice as a result of all the rain of the past week and the frosty night.

The chaotic lattice of bare branches against the dawn sky made for an unusual photo.

In the opposite direction the skies were more subtle pastel shades and the (almost) full moon was still very visible. There's a firmly held belief among some people that a full moon somehow causes a sharp frost, whereas it is of course the clear sky that makes the moon visible and allows the ground to cool.

 

I don't think I've ever shown you Sheen Mill, once one of several watermills hereabouts and now a posh restaurant. A little further along I saw my first human (and dog) of the day and we congratulated each other on our impeccable taste in being out on this fine morning before continuing in opposite directions.

Eventually the sun rose above the horizon as I marched across a hard-frozen field. Today's early morning sky-show was more or less over.

The low-angled sunlight lit up the tree growing on a small mound, which is actually a Bronze Age burial mound, so it's been greeting the dawn for maybe 3,500 years. 

Old leaves still persist in some of the sheltered hollows and were prettily etched by the frost.

I know this sounds absurd, but I wander over to look at this old man-hole cover every time I pass this way and usually attempt the same photo. This morning there was just enough frost to pick out some of the details while allowing the rich colours to still be seen. Little things....

And, at this time of year at least, I keep an eye open for this little clump of snowdrops which is usually among the earliest to bloom. Spring can't be too far off.

Aha! Another little sunrise, courtesy of a boot-print frozen into the mud! It must be time this crazy old fellow went home. But before I go here's a few photos from last week when my brother and I took the short drive from his house to Fen Drayton Lakes for a spot of bird watching.....

There was a lot more "lake" than usual and we couldn't even get to the car park as the approach road was under water. We followed everyone else's example and parked by the roadside and gazed across the flooded fields.

Among the large flock of Greylag Geese were three or four White-Fronted Geese. As you can see it's just the front of the head that is white. There are always a few of these migratory geese that come to the East of England every year, but they usually stay on the coast where they join the huge flocks of Pink-Footed Geese. This year, for some reason only so far known to the geese themselves, they've come further inland. If they'd just come a bit nearer to the camera we'd all be happy!

This must be something like the whole of the fens used to look every winter before all the drainage schemes were completed. Happily for those who live in Fenland the floods are confined to a few wild areas and, apart from a few flooded roads, life is able to go on as normal.

A birder's list: 

Fen Drayton Lakes RSPB (flooded)      29/01/2021

Distance walked:  3.6 miles

Birds seen: Collared Dove, Wood Pigeon, Rook, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Black-Headed Gull, Yellowhammer, Blackbird, Fieldfare, Redwing, Lapwing, Robin, Cetti's Warbler (heard), Great Tit, Blue Tit, Long-Tailed Tit, Dunnock, Cormorant, White-Fronted Goose, Great White Egret, Grey Heron, Greylag Goose, Goldeneye, Coot, Tufted Duck, Gadwall, Teal, Pochard, Shoveler, Mallard, Mute Swan, Pheasant, Green Woodpecker, Wigeon, Great Crested Grebe, Meadow Pipit, Kestrel, House Sparrow.

Animals: Rabbit.

Take care.

Misty Blues And Muddy Shoes

Raising the kitchen blind revealed that a sudden fog had enveloped the neighbourhood, making everything look strange and unfamiliar. As good a time as any for this morning's walk. Are you coming?

The sun has not yet arisen from its slumbers and the light has that magical blue cast which occurs at this early hour. Time then for some gentle, soft photos of the High Street and North End.

This won't last long so I'm all the time debating whether walking faster or slower is the best for taking photos. 

This mighty horse chestnut tree stands right outside where I used to work.

By the time I turn off onto the footpath that runs along behind the church the blueness is beginning to fade, but the mist will linger for a while yet.

This silhouetted tree with the fallen branches lying in front appealed to me for some reason on this particular morning. I must have walked past it more than a hundred times before!

The same with this group of trees, though the heavy overnight rainfall has picked out what may well be an old trackway across the meadow.

It was still misty when I reached the flood-prone meadow of Shepreth Moor, but I decided to take some shots of closer details like these floating grasses.

I've taken lots of pictures in the past of these sawn-off hawthorn stumps - and I added more to my collection, but I won't inflict them on you this time. Though I will show you a fallen tree that is covered with moss.

It's partly submerged by the water and the general dampness has brought out the colour in the swirling grain of the wood.

Yes, I got carried away and took several pictures of the woodgrain, including this little temporary rainwater pool which has collected in a hollow in the trunk.

Isn't moss amazing stuff? Like a forest in miniature. Just then I was interrupted by Harry.

Harry is a dog who, his owner explained, likes to come here and run up and down the fence beside the railway, chasing trains. He barked at me in the disapproving way that most dogs do when they realise that I haven't got a dog with me; not many people are out and about at this hour without a canine companion.

I extended my walk by taking the muddy track across the fields and beside farm buildings. Not very scenic but good exercise without too many picturesque distractions.

Take care.

There At My Feet

Sometimes you scan the far horizon for something to photograph: at other times it's right there at your feet.

And if like me you nearly go base-over-apex within a few seconds of leaving your back door, you tend to keep a lookout for it for the rest of the morning.

Ice! It was on every puddle, just waiting to catch the unwary. They say that art often arises out of adversity, so I resolved to train my camera lens on its extraordinary patterns and see if I could come up with any interesting photos from my morning tramp.

I suppose I was looking for some kind of abstract images, though that implies that what you see is removed from observable reality and makes you puzzle about exactly what you're looking at. That won't apply here because I've already told you what they are - frozen puddles, every last one of them.

It was an overcast morning so I've had to give the pictures more contrast and boost the colour on some of them. But all the strange patterns were created by nothing more than the effects of sub-zero temperatures on muddy water.

The green patches on the photo above seemed to be caused by some kind of algae, but exactly what caused all the wriggly lines I cannot explain.

 

I was just on the look out for pleasing, or puzzling, patterns, but I'm sure some of you will find faces or animals lurking somewhere. I used to have that kind of imagination when I was younger but I seem to have lost it somewhere along the way!

It's an oddly addictive kind of photography and one on which it was very easy to get hooked as there is such a plentiful supply of puddles around at the moment.

And every puddle seemed to have different patterns, even when they were only a foot or two apart and lying along the same tractor wheel rut.

I suppose some scientists can explain just how all these patterns are formed. Even more scarily a psychologist might be able to tell you why I photographed some and let others go unphotographed!

Or indeed why anyone would take pictures like this at all!

Or, for that matter, why you'd be looking at them!

Anyway it passed a couple of hours of my time in a most pleasant way, and gave me a good appetite by the time I got home.

Take care.

A Watery Walk

A set of photos from a couple of strolls around the RSPB's bird reserve at Fowlmere, just a short distance away from home.

As most of you will know it's a regular haunt of mine, though at the moment it looks a little different as much of the wet woodland is wetter than usual, some of it very much underwater.

The main path around the reserve is mostly raised above the flood, though the woodland loop is, if not underwater, at least under-mud. The mud can be interesting though when it shows the tracks of the many Muntjac and Fallow Deer that make their homes here. We sighted both species in the flesh, including an almost white Fallow buck splashing through the reedbed.

As it's been a relatively mild winter so far, fungi are continuing to thrive on the sodden rotting wood.

Ivy grows on many of the trees in this part of the country and, although it can eventually strangle the life out of the tree that supports it, its evergreen foliage provides a warm winter refuge where many small birds hunt for insects.

Most of my other local walks are also very wet at the moment, some involving a good deal of paddling while others are deep with mud. The path here at Fowlmere has another advantage in these Covidious times of being designated as one-way, so you don't spend all your time dodging out of the way of oncoming pedestrian traffic.

And there are some gorgeous little corners to explore, like the little pool above which was opened up a couple of years ago by cutting back some of the scrub vegetation.

There are several trees on the reserve which have the strange shape of the one above; they seem to have collapsed in all directions as the ground gets regularly inundated every winter.

Mosses and lichens thrive too, anywhere they can get a foothold.

As it's a bird reserve you'd probably expect a list of birds seen, but there's been little of any great interest about on the last couple of visits, though on Christmas morning, when my brother and I went for a pre-dinner stroll, we spied a White-Fronted Goose on the meadow beside the entrance road. I knew they'd been seen elsewhere, but later learned that it was the first ever (!) sighting of this winter visitor on this particular reserve.

Take care.