Tracks in the snow

Yesterday we were told to expect two feet of snow to fall overnight, and sure enough, around about midnight it began. A fine, crisp powdery snow falling thickly – as I watched from the top of the fire escape it obliterated the grass below. I went to bed thrilled skinny that even in London you get the good snow sometimes!

The morning dawned quiet and still, a strange thing in the city. But the snow was not the thick blanket I had hoped for and the flakes that were still tumbling out of the sky were wet and melting as they fell.  I trudged down the slush covered fire escape with the new bird feeder in one hand and a stepladder in the the other, trying to figure out where the most squirrel proofed place in the garden might be. That’s when I spotted the dainty tracks criss crossing the snow. There were two sets of tracks, one old and hard to read and filling up rapidly with falling snow. The tracks you see to the left however were crisp and fresh as a daisy.  A fox! Looks like  foxy was running to leap the fence when she heard me open the door – I just missed seeing her. I know that foxes hunt the mice and other rodents that hang around the compost bins and nearby garden sheds and wonder if this weather makes hunting easier or harder.  I realised that my delight in the wintry weather largely comes from having plenty to eat and not having to hunt for my food under a freezing blanket of snow. This is harsh weather for wildlife and set to stay for a week at the very least, which is why I’m breaking my rule about never feeding the birds.

Feeding the birds in my neighbourhood is a bad idea; it’s pretty much inviting them to commit suicide. Our eccentric cat loving neighbour feeds all the local cats which means that his – and our – garden is constantly full of them. Come the snow, the cats go home and I feel a little better about doing it, but there are still the squirrels to contend with – I doubt they’d actually kill a bird, but they can certainly drive them all away and eat their food. I like squirrels, but in the garden they are cunning gluttons. And then of course there is fantastic Ms fox. But I wouldn’t mind a bit if I saw a fox take a bird from our garden -  it’s what they do, it’s what they’ve always done, just making a living after all. If I feed the birds and a fox benefits from that one day… well, good luck to it.

So I hung up the feeder and retreated indoors, assuming that the big snow we were promised was all just talk. A couple of hours later the sky was dizzy with whirling snowflakes, the clouds an eerie ultraviolet. Let’s see how it looks tomorrow.

Happy Belated Midsummer

Midsummer this year was a far gentler affair than last years epic  night walk up Snowdon - wow, was that really a whole year ago? R and I went instead to visit his parents in Hampshire and had a peaceful time strolling about in the countryside, eating his mothers home made delicious Victoria sponge cake and generally taking it easy. Midsummer is a special time though, and we spent midsummer eve skulking about in the fields wondering what would be the best way to mark it. Remnants of freshly harvested hay laying strewn about in the grass seemed too good not to play with, so we constructed a double spiral and spent a giggly half hour or so walking it’s curves as if it were a labyrynth, occasionally jumping into or out of the centres and generally thinking about how midsummer is one of the hinges of the year. Everything (apart from birdsong, which is already thinning) now feels to be at it’s peak, but already we are on our way to autumn.

Heavy workloads mean that we are both early to bed these days, but I suffer from insomnia and vowed to myself that if I awoke in the early hours I would bend this curse to my advantage. Sure enough I was wide awake at 4.20 am, so I quietly dressed and went outside. I’m glad I did. I’d hardly been out of the door ten minutes when I noticed a dark shape moving at the far end of the field. I raised my binoculars expecting a rabbit and instead was delighted to see a fox, apparently pounce-hunting for voles. I was hidden from view by a gatepost; the creature had no idea I was there so I settled to watch.  I assumed after a few pounces that foxy was having no luck, but then a second fox jumped up from the short grass, and the two leggy creatures started frolicking like spring lambs. It was a vixen and her mate; rather than hunting she’d been playing, trying to rouse him from a doze! I was entranced. Of course at this time of year I should have realised that there was something missing from this picture but it wasn’t missing for long as a third fox, their single cub, bounded out of the hedgerow and joined the game. They scampered and raced, cavorted and leapt, throwing bits of hay like confetti as they played. This went on for ten minutes or more, until one of the cubs’ games of hide and seek went on a little longer than before and I realised they had melted into the hedgerow for good.

I wandered across the fields hopeful of a badger sighting, and the pale dawn arrived rose petal white – a cloudy day. No badgers, they were probably already in bed as I was dressing, but I did get to see another fine dog fox on his way home from hunting. Wild foxed these – not your insolent unafraid urban critters but wary and suspicious, and for very good reason.  It was about six am when I wandered back over stubbly fields and already the sound of shotguns was punctuating the air. Hampshire is not a good place to live if you are furred or feathered, or so it seems to me. As I walked I found this pheasent’s egg, raided by one of the foxes perhaps or even a stoat.

Pheasants, introduced to this country purely as moving targets and preyed on by all and sundry may be cossetted by gamekeepers for the early part of their lives, but seeing that broken egg reminded me that theirs is a crummy lot really. Heartily glad to be top of the food chain I made my way back to the house.

Belated Happy New Year…

…I know it’s late but I’ve barely sat still for the last six weeks or so, so I hope you’ll forgive me. Coming soon I have some pictures of the incredible freak weather southern England has been experiencing. But for now, just to remind us that spring really will be on it’s way sooner than you think, I’d like to introduce you to Ms Fox. She’s making the most impressive racket in our back gardens right now as she calls to Mr Fox all night and all day, sometimes a hushed  “yip yip yip”, but more and more often a window rattling scream that would test the strongest nerves. I caught her going about her morning routine, patrolling the neighbourhood fences and walls in search of breakfast.

The ones that got away

Last weekend we visited R’s parents again. The countryside has changed and matured in the scant weeks since our last visit; since then crops have been harvested, caterpillars have dispersed and pupated and summer is having it’s final gaudy fling. I went out for a short walk to photograph the Lords and Ladies, whose berries were fat and ripening in the hedgerow. Wearing new rubber soled baseball shoes I found my tread lighter than usual, and while I revelled in this it wasn’t my main concern – that lay in getting a correct exposure in the tricky dappled light. I’d crouched awkwardly among the leaf litter for a little too long, and after failing to get my shot I straightened up to see, looking at me over the hedge with uncertain curiosity, a small deer. I stared at the deer in astonishment – at furthest two metres from me – and it stared back, until the spell broke and it wheeled and vanished into the trees.

Two interesting things – the deer had, I am sure, been aware of me for some time and far from being afraid, it had indulged in a little people watching. What on earth would this creature have made of what it saw? Deer are widespread and considered vermin in the gardens and farmlands of Hampshire; people are no friend to them, and the deer generally know this. I found the creatures daring and curiosity exhilarating. The second interesting thing is that I have no pictorial record of this encounter. Why? I am a notorious shutterbug and had my camera switched on and ready in my hand.  I could say that it wasn’t set up for the shot, and I could say that I was afraid to move lest the flash of the camera lens startle the animal. Both are true, and neither. I just wanted to drink in this moment of contemplating an unfamiliar being without anything else getting in the way. To raise a camera at the moment my eyes met those of a wild animal would have been crass; instead of having a quiet shared moment with this creature, I would have become a gawking tourist.

After I’d recovered from the surprise of being stalked by a deer, I decided to forget the botanical shots and test out my new, silent shoes. Padding quietly along the trail I didn’t expect to see anything more than rabbits; the deer was probably several fields away by now. At a small clearing where two trails meet I stepped out into the open patch of short sunny rabbit grazed grass. As I did so, a red fox, slender and lithe, emerged from the thick hedge directly opposite and stepped into the clearing with me. Nose quivering, belly to the floor, it hadn’t noticed me at all, and I can only assume that it was intent on the trail of tender baby rabbits. For the second time in less than ten minutes my jaw dropped as I regarded the small, fierce animal creeping towards me. The moment at which the fox noticed me was one of pure indignity for both of us. It started in cartoon-like horror, all four feet leaving the ground simultaneously and flailing midair as it frantically tried to change direction by 180 degrees. The elegant creature from a moment ago had metamorphosed into Wiley E Coyote, and I was clumsily grappling with my camera like a buffoon from a silent film, determined this time to have proof of what I had seen. Ha! So much for my precious anti-tourist stance, here I was fumbling at the controls of my little point and shoot and doing a little jig of frustration.  It would have looked to a third party (perhaps a deer?) like someone had just shot 1000 volts through both of us. Net result? I got an oddly tilted picture of a blurred and empty hedgerow, the fox got no dinner and the bunnies hiding in the long grass undoubtedly got a right good belly laugh.

Oxford, small worlds and random acts of kindness

Last night I was in Oxford, a city so beautiful at night it can seem enchanted. I was there to indulge in a little random act of kindness (more on that later) and for the opening of Small worlds, the art of the invisible, an exhibition at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford. A collaboration of artist Heather Barnett and poet Will Holloway, it features animation, poetry, microbe printed wallpaper and microscopic oddities galore. It’s on until April, so if you are in Oxford between then and now it’s definitely worth a look. I’d been looking forward to this for ages; Will is a friend of mine and it was lovely to see and hear the finished work at last. I’ve never been to this museum before and the permanent collection is also wonderful, I think I’ll be going back there to spend a day gazing at beautiful shiny scientific instruments.

Of course we had to toast the momentous occasion and a few of us found ourselves in the pub opposite, where delicious beer was to be had. While there I left some treasure behind, a small necklace as a present for whoever finds it first. I’ve always loved the idea of anonymous or random kindnesses and I’ve resolved to act on my impulse whenever inspiration strikes. True enough I got my reward – I arrived back in London in the early hours of next morning, and on the walk home from the bus stop I saw five foxes!