February Frogspawn

We had an extremely chilly walk through Seaton valley yesterday. In the valley itself it was fine, but along the shore from Seaton to Downderry there was a strong Siberian wind blowing straight in my face, which would have been quite unpleasant if I had not been wearing the fleece lined water-and-windproof trousers, Swedish loggers' ditto jacket, red felt hat and black felt gloves, thermal socks, big boots, woolly scarf round face... I was ready for the Arctic and enjoyed the walk. Ty didn't swim, for once. He dipped the toes in and decided against it. The river was quite high and running pretty fast, so it's just as well.



There were lots of snowdrops in flower through the woods, and lots of frogspawn in the ditch beside the path at the country park end. No ice on the water yet, but that may change over the next few days, as the forecast is for even colder weather.

I saw an egret investigating the rock pools at Seaton, the first time I've seen one there, although Jenny tells me that she sees it often, and that it patrols all the way from Seaton to Bass Rock.

This morning it was quite a lot colder than yesterday, although the wind has dropped. Walking down through the coombe I was crunching ice instead of slipping on mud. We have no snow - possibly the only corner of England without any, according to news reports - and it's been a beautiful sunny day. Churchtown was particularly lovely this afternoon, full of strange birds. At least I thought some of them were strange until I realised that they were goldfinches that were robin shaped because of the cold. And the robins were as round as tennis balls.

It is absolutely dry underfoot, not snowing, not icy at all, and yet for the first time ever a council workman has been round spreading grit on the path outside our front door, and on the car parks at the back. Not on the steps, though, that would be too sensible. And not on the roads, either. The only other place I saw that had been gritted was the Co-op car park.



I saw an egret investigating the rock pools at Seaton, the first time I've seen one down there, but Jenny tells me that she sees it often, and it patrols all the way from Seaton to Bass Rock.



This morning it was quite a lot colder, although the wind had dropped. The mud in the Coombe had frozen solid, as had all the puddles, but there was no ice