Yesterday D and I returned to some local lanes to do a circular walk that we did a month or so back.
It was one of those beautiful cold, frosty, sunny days. As we left the car the temperature was around three degrees centigrade but by the time we had completed the walk as the sun set it was only just one degree above freezing. Vegetation and leaves were still coated with frost.
The sun was already low when we started the walk.
Why do people dump litter? Goodness knows how many miles away the nearest Costa is - someone must just have decided to throw this out of a car window :(
Catkins are starting to form.
Frost-coated bracken.
The sun being so low and starting to set was giving a beautiful rosy glow to the trees and bushes.
Taking ages to compose the next shot!
A few remaining holly berries but
lots of ivy berries to provide winter food for birds.
Just one lone dandelion seen in flower during the walk.
This is the start of a walk that E and I did several years ago when I was doing a bird survey when we got totally and utterly lost on public footpaths.
Sunset
I've included below a few photos D took with the Canon SX50 HS partly because the sunset ones were a lot better than mine! and partly to show the usefulness of the zoom lens. I would never have been able to take the blue tit shot even if I had had the 70-300 lens on my camera.
There weren't too many birds around just blue tits, robins, blackbirds, wood pigeons and magpies. The pheasants and partridges seen last time had all disappeared although I was pleased to see 2 handsome cock pheasants on the way home that had been wily enough to escape the guns and pot.
Now Christmas is more or less out of the way I'll try and find time to read the Canon manual and try and take some photos myself. I had a bad cold and chest infection mid-December which was a pain to put it mildly as by the time I felt better I had less than a week until Christmas to catch up on 10 days housework, washing and ironing and Christmas baking and preparations so its been hectic!
