Snow

Deep snow now covers the marshes. The first bird I saw when I opened the curtains this morning was a Woodcock flying across the garden, probably from where its been feeding under the hedges, to roost in the alder wood, then a Buzzard heading in the opposite direction. The journey to work was decidedly hairy for the first mile, once I had managed to get gong that is. Having stopped the car on the road to close the gate to the drive, the wheels at first spun helplessly on the icy surface as I tried to move off. With a bit of steering wheel jiggling I eventually set off and was surprised to negotiate the hill up to the church with only a little bit of slippage. It was a different story on the way home from work as there was now a car stuck on the hill blocking the way so I had to take a long, slow detour to approach home from the opposite direction.
Husband had managed 3 Footit ticks during the morning, Brambling and Bullfinch, which I'm not bothered about as I'll catch up with those at some point, but also 7 Bewicks Swans, an irregular sighting here, which had flown up the valley. Surprisingly there is still a flock of about 500 Pink-footed Geese out on the marshes.
Unfortunately birding was off the menu as the priority was getting fodder to the livestock particularly with it looking like this bad weather is set in for a while. The poor Southdowns which had previously been enjoying the lush grass in their winter field at Thurlton now had snowballs stuck to their woolly faces from trying to reach the grass beneath the snow. It looked briefly like we might have got the car stuck in the snow in the field but working on the principle that if it won't go forward trying going back the way you came we were soon free and heading home.
Back in the garden a small flock of Fieldfares has taken up residence in our cotoneaster, the only bush in the garden with any berries on it and a sensible wren has discovered that the greenhouse is several degrees warmer than outside and probably full of insects lurking in nooks and crannies. Hopefully I can get out tomorrow for a proper look round.