A micro season
I’ve enjoyed this past week, the mud gone, a sparkling morning frost and beautiful bold sunsets. A micro season in one week.
The moon rose early and had filled out over the week, hanging like the big light in the lounge, but didn’t compete with the sunset, it didn’t have to. The jet trails criss-crossed their pink, orange and white way added to the spectacle. The cold air making the colours bold and deep.
Walking on water
Some of the shady corners have frost throughout the day and the ponds in this disused quarry are frozen. Animal tracks and rabbit pooh also frozen for the week. We stopped to skim pebbles of chalk across the pond surface to hear them make that weird icy echo sound - thwack thwack! Leo likes to walk on water!
The movement of the local fox as it tears across the field catches my eye, only to slow down and look back at us from a safe distance. Its impressive tail is almost as long as its body. Just a bit bigger than the muntjac deer who take their lives in their hooves to dart across the road up towards Ashridge.
I usually include my own photographs, but birds are difficult to capture as they take flight or sit on a branch observing from a distance.
Despite the cold, the birds are very active; the flock (or an “ear-full") of waxwings lifts in a cloud of wings as we approach a thicket of Hawthorne, now stripped bare of berries. These nervy birds overwinter from Scandinavia and Russia, and will be gone in early spring. Lovely to see them up close.
This week felt like the national hungry bird count as have seen woodpeckers, kites, bluejays, mute swans, formations of gulls, blackbirds, robins and usual gang of LBJ’s in the garden. Little brown jobs. Sadly there was only a small murmuration.
With no wind and minimal cloud cover, the cold has amplified sounds and everything is in sharp relief. All change this week though to gales and rain so I already have a different response: watching I don’t slip in the mud, I won’t linger nor especially notice much with my head down avoiding rain on my face.
As we head home from my own private wildlife haven, Ivinghoe Beacon is smothered in a beautiful soft pink marshmallow of fading light.
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The reeds are alive with unseen birds, jostling and settling in causing waves across the reeds and loud chatter. Two smaller groups join, one after the other as the sun slips over the hill. A winter murmuration.
If like me, you are hopeless at identifying the sounds that belong to their owners, download this handy app called Merlin Bird ID from wherever you get your apps.
Five miles north of the genteel market town of Marlow, at the end of pretty country lanes, you will possibly recognise the location of this Chilterns hamlet. Turville has enjoyed a starring role in many popular films and mini-series. In 1871 it was the scene of probable deception. The Sleeping Girl of Turville.
You can find me most days on Instagram @Chilternhills_Treasures
Lovely, Mary xx