Spring is in the air

At least that's how it felt today. There were lots of signs all happening together. Outside we could hear dripping water everywhere, snow was sliding off roofs where it had sat for weeks, birds singing, more light, and, of course, warmth in the sun and a temperature of 5°C.  At nearly 4 o'clock the sun hadn't set.  However, there is still plenty of snow and the lakes are still well-frozen. 
Our day started with us seeing a pair of willow ptarmigans (Lagopus lagopus) wandering around in the birch trees (extra). These birds are also called willow grouse, or in the UK red grouse. In the trees they look very unnatural and clumsy at first, because they seem far too large to be clinging to thin birch twigs. However, when we watched for a while my opinion changed because they never seemed to lose their balance, even as the twigs moved and swung about quite vigorously at times. I think they were eating the catkins you can see around them. They were certainly gobbling something down! Wikipedia tells me the Latin name means "hairy foot", and these birds do indeed have hairy legs (which you can see in Jan's blip) and even hair on their feet.
Later in the day I took a walk, and there I found today's blip. In that photo there is an icy sheen on the snow. Between me and the sun there is a set of tracks. I'm fairly sure they are fox tracks. Each back foot lands in the same place their front foot has just lifted away from, and they leave a single line of prints. Animals that do this are apparently called "perfect steppers" and it is a very efficient way of walking in snow.
Home from my walk I started to create a  "shepherd's" pie, but using reindeer mince. After consultation with Jan we decided it should also have some of the porcini mushrooms we picked in late summer and froze. It was a delicious meal, though I'm not an impartial judge of course.