Snow, songs and snowdrops

 I have a couple of trail cameras in remote locations on Cuerden to monitor any wildlife that may visit when I am not there. This fox is a regular in one of the woodlands especially as it checks out the rabbit holes. You will see at the bottom right of the photo that the temperature reached -7 C. It is a still photo taken from a video clip.

 

The day after this we had more snow. The first day I stayed in mainly because I coukdn't get my vehicle out of the road in which I live. I managed to walk onto Cuerden Valley Park with the help of "YakTrax" on the bottom of my boots. I can assure you that though the fox clip was taken in black and white, the photo below of the stone bridge was taken in colour.

 

The main reason for my expedition was to fill the bird feeders we have in a number of locations on the Park. It took some birds as long as 4 seconds to get back to the seed.

One of the charities for which I volunteer, Cuerden Valley Park, has had help from the National Lottery. Beacuse of this the charity recieve tickets to the Lottery's "Big Night of Musicals" at the AO Arena in Manchester. I was one of those who went this year. It was superb with Beverly Night singing with a youth theatre. This was followed later in the evening by four tenors sharing the song "Bring him home", the fourth one being Alfie Boe. They did bring a couple of tears to my eyes Brilliant!! The girls you see in this poor photo are not part of our group. Because we drove there I made a donation to  https://www.climatestewards.org in order to offset the carbon. My colleague's good driving also made it a stress free journey both ways.

 

Most of the following week was wet and windy, but I had a short walk in the Kem Mill area of Cuerden Valley Park. Very few birds around and even fewer people. What did brighten my day was the sight of several snowdrops and crocus in flower. 

The flowers seem to think spring is on the way but my moth trap hasn't caught anything for about two weeks. This means my January Moth Challenge stands at 1. I will probably now wait until March before trying again