icefall

the water in Kit Hill quarry has frozen solid but no dogs were allowed to try it out given recent tragic events. It is so cold that an icefall has formed on the quarry face. (OK, the blue is cheating)

going home

a flock of starlings going home to roost.

making tracks

does anyone have any idea what might have made these tracks, meandering from one small clump of snow covered grass to another. The larger tracks (to the left, and top) are made by rabbits, but what walks in a straight line by placing one dainty foot in front of another. It doesn't look like the tracks of a bird. A very small rabbit maybe?

snipe over Dartmoor, and Venterdon

snipe (dot in sky in top picture) are easily startled and very quick through the air, but have a characteristically over long beak for their small bodies. They often live in the fields in the winter but it is extremely difficult to catch them in a photograph, they're gone before the camera can focus.

some hungry visitors

this is the first song thrush we have seen in the garden for a long time (top two photos). The song thrush is a much browner looking bird than the mistle thrush which is greyer and has a lighter face. The blackbird is also a member of the thrush family and the brown female (third photo) has very thrush like mottled breast feathers

the fields of gold

another strange day with a golden sunset across freezing fog creating an eerie and magical world of soft suffused light; it reminded me for some reason of the song, but fields of miscanthus not barley.