Muddy Walks

We had nice sunny weather and it was good to get out for a walk today but heavy overnight rain ensured we still had plenty of mud to negotiate and lots of water in the streams.

Bittern on show

We enjoyed our visit to the Festival of Birds at Slimbridge where the Bittern was showing really well from the Zeiss hide. It stalked around walking on the ice prodding for food and even swam at one point. Usually rather difficult to spot due to its wonderfully camouflage, today it was visible as it was just below the hide and in the sunshine. Everyone was stunned to see the green legs, long claws and it's beady eye.

Sheep in the snow

It's a hard time to be a sheep as you can see here, at least today the snow was soft and could be moved aside. For the farmers snowy conditions can make for a busy time as they look after their animals making sure that they have supplementary supplies of food, and drinking water that isn't frozen. These sheep are lucky and we enjoyed seeing them and the wonderful sunset over Smallpox hill on our late afternoon walk.

Snow Drifts

We still have the snow with us today and some beautiful drifts have formed on the edge of Uley Bury

Snowy scenes

Winter snow comes to Coaley although not as bad as first forecast we have 50mm of fresh snow decorating the trees.

Hazel Catkins

Snow may be on its way but so is spring as the yellow lambs tails catkins of the hazel are everywhere in the hedgerows.

Fieldfares

Winter is the typical time to see these colourful Thrushes. Fieldfares have grey heads and we were pleased to see a small group of three of these handsome birds on Uley Bury yesterday. They come to the UK from northern Europe and scour the fields looking for food such as berries. We would probably not have spotted them had it not been for the sunshine which showed off their very upright posture, and their harsh calls to each other were distinctive as they arrived in the tree.

Chavenage Green

The impressive tree lined avenues around Chavenage House looked beautiful in yesterday's winter sunshine,very different from the green shady lanes of summer.

Long Horn Cattle

Recent years have seen a revival in the magnificent English Longhorn cattle breed which was once rare but is now a welcome sight in the fields again.They are mainly  beef cattle and the meat is said to be delicious.

Woodchester Park

The National Trust is progressively restoring Woodchester Park to the more open appearance that existed when it was a landscaped  park surrounding the mansion.
Most of the valley which features ornamental lakes  and walks had been planted with commercial forestry and here a larch plantation has recently been cleared to be restored to open pasture and open up the views again.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all.
2013 has at least started with clear skies so let's hope it will be a little less wet than 2012.We have recorded 830mm of rain in the past 6 months which is more than our usual annual rainfall
The picturesque little lake in the photo is normally just a field and we were surprised to find it blocking our path on a recent walk.