Typical. I lived in southeast England for 18 years and never had snow in November, but it seems like it was all over Britain this weekend! As I live on the coast snow is rare here, but after a 40-minute drive south to Grantown-on-Spey there was snow beneath my boots again.
A festive food market was in full swing along the main high street. We had a quick browse before heading down the aptly named Forest Road to one of my favourite wild places in Scotland: Anagach Woods.
The last time I visited was on a sweltering afternoon in May. This time everything was coated in white, adding cartoon highlights to branches and trunks. Over the past couple of years I’ve become a real winter baby so I was in my element.
As we walked along a high ledge overlooking deep bowls of forest floor on either side, a chattery cackle overhead made me look up and jump for joy: a flock of fieldfares were flying over!
I’ve been longing to see fieldfares since they left for their breeding grounds in Scandinavia at the end of last winter. They’re one of my power five – along with bramblings, waxwings, redwings and long-tailed ducks – and I can’t wait to try and photograph them again this year.
There’s nothing like snow and fieldfares to get me even more in the winter mood!
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