Back Out on the Trails

 Running day today, a bitterly cold one and it is only going to get colder. 

The birds knew it was new year, you know. Since then, there is so much more song and noise in the dawn. I have local robins and blackbirds singing to greet me as I open the door in the morning. Birds are getting territorial, alarm calls chacking out from the blackbirds, and robins aggro-strutting in the old oak wood at the park.

On the water the mallard drakes are in full breeding colours, bottle green heads glowing in sunlight. Goosander are on the two lakes, the pieballed battleships of the duck world. 

On the ground, snowdrops and aconite are out in flower, cowslips too in the library gardens. It is my favourite few months of the year now, as the cemetery changes colour every month as I run through it. I'm loving running again, when my body will stand it.

I'm trying to rediscover the joy in moving through nature. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.01.24

A Soggy Start to 2024

 It was raining like mad last night, it is raining like anything today, so I've spent New Years Day on the sofa. 

In fact, we seem to have been enduring rain and stormy winds for the entire holiday season! There is so much flooding around here, with Sconce Park pastures and large chunks of Farndon village being below water. But I've still managed to get out running a few times, albeit going very slowly, and really enjoyed being out there, spotting the first signs of the colours of spring. 

In addition to snowdrops, we have the first flowering aconite, mahonia and most strangely, cowslips in bloom in the library gardens. 

I've enjoyed watching tweeping flocks of goldfinch working on teasel heads, long tailed tits flitting through willow trees by the lake and river, and on New Years Eve a huge buzzard sat on the ground in a paddock, staring intently at something under a battleship grey sky. 

There's a lot of world out there, and I intend to explore more of it than I have been doing. 

Si

All text and images copyright Cream Crackered Nature 01.01.24