Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes

I'M dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones we used to know but my wife is not. Not that one anyway; not the one with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and the everlastingly exquisite Vera-Ellen. My wife says that if the film is run yet again she will leave home.

Well, for the duration of the film anyway. Instead, she is going to wander out into the woods and farmland around my home as shown in these two photographs I took some six years ago. She is hoping there will be a white Christmas out there for her.

I will find it difficult not to go with her and leave the American slush in the box. For one thing, snow brings with it a special clean taste in the nose, a concise distinctness of landscape structure and detail for the eye, and a primitive feeling of mind sharpening that is probably to do with the hunting instinct for the brain.

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In snow I find myself scanning the sky very carefully for any bird flying, watching for indicators.

Lapwings flying south in a tight little wing high up may tell of heavy snow moving south a couple of hundred miles north of here.

Snow will bring the fieldfares and redwings from the east, together with thousands of continental blackbirds that will upset the local blackbirds.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette December 24