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re but they are reluctant to fly fieldfares burst from the bottom of hedgerows in ones and twos holding out till the very last moment there are dozens of them they whirl away whimpering quietly when the sun breaks free they station themselves in the hedge tops catching the meagre heat in their breasts redwings too though less numerous a pinch of goldfinches fidgets and flies out in the shining fields the winter flocks gather wood pigeons in their hundreds crouch like smooth grey cobblestones in the frozen surf of the ploughland a spangled necklace of starlings garlands the sunny side of a field hedge a black army of rooks musters beyond a single small white rumped wader rises up from a ditch and flicks away silently to land further up it s a bird new to me and i follow it flies again on rapid shallow wingbeats but i glimpse only a white underbelly and longish bill it could be a green or curlew sandpiper but i m guessing while i m scouring the fields though binoculars i become aware of being watched i turn and glance up the track there not fifty yards away is a vixen staring straight at me caught in mid stride as she crosses she doesn t move and neither do i she is lean and light winter hungry her fur is not as deeply coloured nor as dense as i expect her brush not as bushy she is on high alert wired but i find no fear in her face what does she see perhaps she is young and this her first direct encounter with man we hold holy communion for a full ten seconds then she breaks free from my gaze and disappears into a hedge between fields i try to follow her progress checking both sides of the hedge through the lenses but she is nowhere to be seen no birds scatter no grasses part no rabbit screams i turn into the old rutted trackway and leave the birds behind they seem to prefer these lower northern fields today and become fewer and fewer as i walk south slightly uphill into the pallid light of a faltering sun i am accompanied only by the squeak and crunch of my own rhythmic tread the hollow ring of puddle ice and the shatter of crystal as i break through the surface the frozen whipped mud is as jagged as lava in three miles i see little a covey of red legged partridges seven of them scurry between furrows then flush into flight and descend in a long low glide to the other side of a field landing at a run the rusty spikes of willowherb thrust through the snow tremble with a trio of dunnocks picking through the last of the seedheads this is the first time i ve seen these unremarkable but now rather rare hedge sparrows small brown streaked birds with mouse grey heads and breasts and it is a small triumph that they have appeared in this place at this time a kestrel sits atop a dead stump with its red back to the sun but before i get within two hundred yards it launches into the freezing air and takes a long unhurried flight over the wimpled snow fields the still black cut of the brook the copse the church tower the village of men the streaming highway and on over the fenland farmland far into the north leave a comment filed under writing rambles landscape nature tagged as dunnock fieldfare fox partridge redwing starling december 5 2010 3 40 pm thawwalk78 december 4 th 2010 4 30 a m 7 miles at least it s surprisingly mild after a very cold week damp in the air damp underfoot thawing there s a metallic taste to the air i make for new ground a lake probably an old gravel pit about a mile outside my usual territory it s very dark stars and moon blotted out the lights of the city to the south and from the villages round about project a dull glow into the low crumpled cloud i walk up the concrete strips of the guided busway it s too dark to take a path or farm track the going s not easy the packed snow and ice partially melted is especially slippery i walk past high chain link fencing crowned with barbed wire a food processing plant humming and steaming through the night arc lights blazing steel hoppers silos and flue pipes gleaming ranged barrels stacked high there s no one about then under a road bridge graffitoed and sour smelling of old tyres and asphalt out into open country again past coppice and plough not a bird not a creature abroad i cut across pastureland it s like walking through tundra low hummocks of grass set in a bog of crackling ice and snow beyond the glint of water but between me and the lake are a hedge and a spiked angle iron fence in the icy conditions there s no way i m going to try and climb over not at six in the morning i track the fence until i come to a gap just wide enough to squeeze through open water willow fringed hard up against the embankment of the a14 grinding with a never ending flow of container trucks to and from the east coast but it s too dark to see anything on the water i wait for the dawn it s a long time coming in fact it never really arrives imperceptibly over the course of an hour and a half the dark turns a few shades paler then it s day as good as it gets the lake is disappointingly empty of bird life i was expecting to see some new waterfowl but only half a dozen pairs of mallard scull round the edges like couples out for a walk a peninsula of ice juts out into the water and right on the edge sit perhaps one hundred gulls mostly young black headed gulls with a dark spot behind the eye and a few larger lesser black backs and juvenile herring gulls mottled brown they are mostly quite still and silent strutting and skidding between them are moorhens the ice looks too thin to take all their weight out in open water removed are two black cormorants one is fishing sitting very low in the water it tucks its head close into its long bent neck before diving and then goes straight down it stays under for about 15 seconds before emerging not far away i watch it dive several times but it doesn t appear to catch anything the other is perched on a buoy in heraldic pose with wings limply held out in a hands up position or held out to dry it looks primordial with a strange stump of a tail and ragged greasy plumage a prototype bird reptilian unbeautiful these are no doubt the same cormorants i ve seen flying over three miles to the north now i know where they re headed and some of the passing gulls too a snipe or a jack snipe propels from the bankside and whirs away at speed on a blur of short pointed wings it turns colder bleaker the long walk back though is a warm feast of birds song thrushes unsinging and plenty of skittering blackbirds solitary robins chaffinches magpies a pair of pied wagtails great tits blue tits a party of long tailed tits and the glimpse of a coal tit a charm of goldfinches at least 50 birds swirls overhead uncertain where to go finally dropping down into an alder just up ahead they work through the female cone like catkins extracting the seeds i ve never seen so many goldfinches the tree sparkles with little gold flashes then for the first time a single goldcrest picking through ivy a tiny nervous jewel of a creature twitching and flicking so rapidly i can hardly see it move it just appears in a slightly different position each time like old jerky newsreel other birds come in threes today i encounter three jays three green woodpeckers three kestrels and three little egrets each and all in different locations one jay rattles harshly raising and lowering its crest the green woodpeckers mostly keep to the ground i follow a kestrel along a row of bare horse chestnut trees sleepy and cold it is reluctant to move i get within 15 yards of the bird through binoculars each and every feather that makes up the intricate spotting and barring and rich coloration of its beautiful plumage is revealed it stares straight down at the ground from on high watching intently from time to time it turns its head to look directly at me reproachful as if i was intruding on some intensely private affair which i am it tolerates me for a while then with a shrug launches into a long glide and it s away the three little egrets stand in the midst of a sprouting field a little to the south of where i last saw one very white against the snow furrowed earth they are preening i ve not seen two together or three in these parts later a pair of them fly past me low on big slow wings and settle into a ditch up ahead a passing dog walker flushes them into the air and they double back to where i first saw them i follow the ditch down to its junction with beck brook from the stream unexpectedly another little egret rises at my approach is this one of the three i saw earlier which had somehow slipped by me or is it a different bird they seem very exotic to me these little egrets belonging more to african swamplands than wintry cambridgeshire fields and it s good to know there are at least three in the neighbourhood a few yards further on a grey heron lifts off from the brook with a slow whump whump of wing majestic nearly three times the size of the egrets and fearsome with glaring eye and snake like neck it wheels away into the cold mists of the morning 2 comments filed under writing rambles landscape nature tagged as black headed gull blackbird blue tit chaffinch coal tit cormorant goldcrest goldfinch great tit green woodpecker heron jay kestrel little egret long tailed tit magpie mallard moorhen robin snipe songthrush wagtail december 2 2010 11 11 am winterwalk77 december 2 nd 2010 7 00 a m a four mile pre breakfast ramble yields little i step out into a murky dawn the lightest of powder snow falling the brook is black and still as dense as oil two day old snow stipples the wide empty fields clods showing through we missed the best of it here only the tracks and paths show pure white packed by the passage of tractors and feet gulls float overhead silently making for their feeding grounds in the south away in the shrouded woods a jay shrieks once twice and a blackbird pinks on and on in distress the sky brightens imperceptibly turning pearly grey opalescent in reflected snow light the crunch of my footfall is loud and disturbing fieldfares flee from the harbouring hedgerow and a green woodpecker makes a dash for the trees torpedo like when it folds its wings close between rapid beats the snow is falling a little more thickly now coming out of the east at a very low angle visibility s poor nearby from an overgrown hedge dividing two fields a magpie chatters loud in alarm there s always a reason it breaks cover and flies up to a telephone wire long tail streaming then a flash of brown hawk scythes low over the field and jinks into an orchard settling into an old apple tree i can t tell what it is but i can just make out its shape in the branches i double back to the field entrance to get a better view but it s away at the blink of an eye a fleet shadow against the diminishing morning the snow turns almost to sleet and it s a dreary day out in the fields 1 comment filed under writing rambles landscape nature tagged as fieldfare green woodpecker jay magpie november 29 2010 12 34 pm jaywalk76 november 28 2010 late morning cold clear and sunny no snow last night but a very heavy frost a sparkling high definition winter s day with everything at its sharpest and most intensely coloured the horse pasture below the church is a white sheet of crystals a jay flies low and settles on the ground not often encountered this year though for the past week or so a pair has visited the garden ever wary and off at the slightest of movements this must be one of them the light is behind me and for the first time i see its true colours both deep and pale pink black and white and that flash of sky in the wing a pure azure more perfect in blueness than all other blues beck brook is partially frozen over as translucent and flawed as old glass the feeder from histon is sealed across though further up a clear stream of water flows between shelves of white ice on the ground each blade of grass is a colony of towering crystals and each leaf a crisp curled shard of colour that shatters under the boot beyond the brook in the middle of a winter wheat field the green just breaking through is a solitary little egret slender and white hunched at the shoulder standing on one thin black leg in the sun perfectly still it doesn t even swivel its head or long bill as if frozen solid last seen in this same vicinity in early june an hour later when i have looped around it passes overhead towards the north long neck tucked back legs and yellow feet stretched out behind it flies on stiff concave wings never straightening or flexing them holding the curve of the air that each species has its own distinctive wing movement and flight pattern as one would expect is still endlessly fascinating still wondrous to me in the patch of woodland along the brook blackbirds aplenty scuffle through litter and fly off with a protest into the undergrowth there is a steady slow motion falling of leaves from above a reluctant descent of minerals through air from field maples and oaks a couple of squirrels in different locations retreat to the biggest trees and eye me from on high their thick soft tails arched forward over their backs i am on the lookout now for our local tribe of black melanistic squirrels though these two show no sign of the tarbrush i tarry for some time at the brook where it curves round to pass under the road bridge the sun has brought out the birds on the bankside robins blue tits great tits blackbirds and a solitary redwing with blushed flanks and a striking pale supercilium through the line of the eye pass back and forth over the water here clear of ice these last are usually highly gregarious a moorhen picks through the shallows the clear light transforms this sombre uniformly dark bird into a creature extraordinary for it is exquisitely subtly two toned deep grey black above and paler slate grey below separated by a wavy white line in front a small red bill behind the double white tail jerking incessantly then an unexpected delight a kingfisher alights on a thin branch arching over the water as kingfishers do facing away from me i see only the iridescent turquoise blue back but as it flashes away downstream it reveals its orange red underparts a little winged jewel i ve not seen one since mid july walking upstream i put up a male mallard it flies high in a big sweeping arc and as it turns back towards me five others two drakes and three ducks in tight formation wing fast overhead in the same direction it soon catches up with its crew and off they go united a flight of mallard against a big winter sky what could be more evocative more symbolic of an english winter except perhaps the scent of woodsmoke a single lapwing flies west on broad rounded wings strange to see one on its own then five minutes later half a dozen follow suit reaching the big fields beyond hazed green with young blades of wheat i find dozens more scattered evenly over a wide area working the frozen earth green black bodies white below with distinctive wispy black crests they loo...