Winter Wonderland

This morning was cold!  probably the coldest it's been for several years.  After waking very (very) early and doing a few jobs, including a walk round the garden with a camera and long lens, I finally got out for a walk around 10.30am when there was still quite a bit of frost on the trees as well as the ground.  My walk took me up to Stainbrough Fold, along my favourite footpath towards Thurgoland Hall Lane and then down into Bagger Wood.  I chose to stay on the higher path through the wood so I didn't lose all of the sun and I managed one or two nice images of sunlight through last years beech leaves.  The worst part of my walk was through the linked fields that are occupied by five or six horses and they've made a real mess which makes for very uneven and unpleasant walking. I would't have even contemplated this route if the ground hadn't been frozen as it's simply a mud bath.  I can't understand why they don't manage this pasture better as there is enough land to graze one field and then the other.  As it is the horses simply trample their food source!

As I'm sitting here the garden is alive with birds searching out their late meal before it gets dark.  

6 pheasant (3 females + 3 males)
5/6 bluetits on the fireballs and peanuts
1 coaltit just arrived
an assortment of sparrows - some in the hedge
at least 1 chaffinch

and probably more flying in and out.  I haven't got the binoculars up here on the desk to check them out.