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.