Winter arrives 

This year winter seems to have crept up on the blindside – perhaps because until last week there has been little truly cold weather and overnight frost.

However, the winter birds are certainly present already in numbers whilst other species are easier to spot and identify on the leafless trees.

 I have been walking most days just around the village  and along the narrow gated lanes that radiate towards the other local hamlets. How pleasant and deeply satisfying to walk along such quiet roads where a car interrupts the idyll only once in a while.

The most exciting sight lately has sadly not been captured on camera. Twice in the last couple of weeks I have been blessed with the sight of the local red kite colony swirling round the skies above the village as they approach the evening roost.

There have been as many as twenty of these agile birds at a time effortlessly balancing on the breeze.

As a family we have also seen or come across on the local lanes or adjacent fields animals including badger, fox, muntjac, hedgehog and squirrels as well, of course, as rabbits, stoat and hare.

Along both the lanes going to Brixworth and also to Haselbech we have regularly seen buzzards, not perched on a vantage point, but rather sitting on the ploughed fields hunting rather ignominiously for worms and other lesser prey.

We have started putting out our bird feeders and, of course, the attracted populations of different species has fluctuated since the end of last winter. This year, so far, we seem flooded out with coal tits whilst just a few months ago this species was a casual guest.

I have taken some good photos of redwings just in the edge of the village and again these have been much more prominent than fieldfares whereas in past years more normally the larger winter thrush has been the commoner locally but perhaps this is later on and early into the New Year?

So nothing extravagant to report with awe but simply some good sightings of the wildlife that characterises the beautiful English countryside including some colourful bullfinches which whilst not rare are certainly less common here than say in Kent or Sussex where they flourish in the fruit orchards.

Russia in October 2017 ( update from May- June 2019)

My husband and I visited my family home during the latter part of May and first few days of June 2019. This was very much a working holiday as over the previous 18 months we have been very busy renovating and extending this home. 

It is situated in the Krasnodar region of Russia right to the South of the country two hours flight south of Moscow and bordering the Black Sea. 

Krasnodar is a thriving and wealthy city of well over a million people. The rate of development over the last dozen years has been phenomenal with four major shopping malls built - the largest of which is bigger and glitzier than say the Bull Ring in Birmingham. When we  visited the shops one weekday evening and it took us ten minutes to find a car park slot  from the thousand plus available amongst the strange admixture of Ladas and Range Rover Vogues and Porsche Cayennes. We later had a coffee in the food mall with about a dozen global brand fast food outlets - seating over 500 - completely full up and bustling.  

The region is prosperous for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the area is one of the major centres for gas and oil extraction. Hence also a new and attractive regional headquarters building for Gazprom has recently joined the local skyscrapers. However, the area is also a huge holiday destination in the summer for the Black Sea and hot summers and in the winter for the winter sports in the Caucusus mountains centered on Sochi. Finally ,the area is a key centre also for Russian agriculture as the whole plain area was originally under a sea in pre historical times and the resultant very dark, rich earth combined with a warm climate make it very productive and the bread basket for the populous European sector of the Russian Federation. 

Our home is on a lane overlooking the small spa town of Gorachiy Kluch about thirty miles from Krasnodar. Our home backs straight onto the scrub oak forest which then runs for thirty miles to the Black Sea coast.

The forest has Deer. Brown Bear , Lynx, Wolves, Jackals etc but the space is so vast that only in the very hardest winters do they approach any human habitation. Naturally, the woodland birds predominate and we have seen Little, Medium and Greater Spotted Woodpeckers as well as a nuthatch family who nest just behind our gate into the forest. Jays are very common and a family of Tawny Owls reside just up the hill. 

 My photos are thus constricted to those few birds we saw by sheer chance locally and include a Long Legged Buzzard, Nuthatch,

 Greater Spotted Woodpecker, Skylark and a juvenile Blue Headed Wagtail.
This time we visited beautiful area Honey Waterfalls and ours birdwatcher list was extended by lovely Dipper, Golden eagle,Black voulchers, Griffon voulchers,  Step Eagle, Eastern Imperial Eagle, Ren, Sky Larks Calender Larks, Sparrow Hawks, Swifts....

Next year – we plan to go back for several days to the Kislovodsk area about two hundred miles to the east of Krasnodar where the vast wild  steppe country populated by cowboys herding flocks of goats or wild horses is overshadowed by a sharp ridge of rocky outcrops thrust up by volcanic action in prehistory. Just like in Extremadura in Spain this creates an ideal breeding ground for raptors and on a previous visit we saw Steppe Eagle and Golden Eagles as well as Griffon and Egyptian Vultures, Bonellis and Short Toed Eagles, let alone Buzzards, Kites and Peregrines – all in two days. 

However – before then we are off to Tobago in late February - early March next year which should be simply a wonderful break  We are hopefully at the start of the turtle nesting season and it is quite easy too to get close up to some of the large rays which swim in the coastal waters etc etc but now with the added dimension for both my husband and I of nature photography to capture some of the beautiful humming birds, butterflies and tropical plants – this second trip should be even better. Watch this space!