twilight orange

it is heading to be the sunniest February on record (since 1681 or some such thing but probably not since the beginning of time). Sumptuous pastel colours, blue, green, orange and brown smeared casually across the skyline by Nature's best painter. Spot thinks somewhat immodestly that it is worth clicking on the sunsets label below to see how lucky we have been to see so many amazing sunsets.

global freezing

Spot wants to know where we would stop if we could control global warming. For example would we allow northern Europe to freeze over if we could return the Sahara desert to fertile grasslands? And who would decide?

goldcrests at work

there are five goldcrests in this picture, although only one is obvious. Very busy birds and fierce for their size, they have colonised our conifer plantations.

cassie and her fan club

Spot's mum, and a couple of her admirers, reclining after a heavy day at the office hauling logs swimming, ice breaking (see below) and eating. Frozen camellias (I didn't know until now that there were two l's in camelia) to the right. Spot felt he would be skating on thin ice.

tree creeper

we are having trouble identifying birds at the moment, this looks like it should be a tree creeper and it spent some of its time perching up side down on the tree trunk. We also caught just a fleeting glimpse of a bird with a striking yellowish stripe around its eye ... a redwing we (Spot and I) are told, but no photographs yet.

today was blue

There was thick ice in the leets and puddles today as the hard frost persisted through the morning. The sky is deep blue and feels roofless. Nature seems a bit stunned by this cold turn, the frog spawn is stuck to the ice, the snowdrops are drooping and the buds are brown from frost bite. Life is on the cusp.