We must consider ourselves lucky with regard all these named storms that have caused havoc all over the country. Yes our area has been affected by floods and to get out of the village with heavy rain, combined with snow melt made it for just one day fairly hazardous. But nothing that folks around here aren’t used to. We had 4″ of snow in a very short time, which even I got stuck in for a short while, but by 10am the snow plough had been up & I was able to drive up the hill, from just below the view I gave you of the road in my last post.
I think most probably the worse aspect of the storms we have felt has been the strong winds. Fortunately no structural damage to the house, no trees uprooted, just some very scary noises and of course the picture below of my upturned (tied down) homemade bird hide, a few minor repairs & it is as good as new & awaiting me to brave the cold & snap the many hungry birds that are flocking to the garden.
Talking of hungry, if we look roughly West from our house , beyond the hill is open moors, which if we walk up you can see stretch a good five miles of hillocks & heather. Checking the Ordinance Survey map the top of the hill is a mile away and in between two separate woods is a sloping section of the moors coming down to the farmers field with cattle in. In winter when we have had snow hanging around for a while (like this last week) we often see herds of Red Deer stags coming for the shelter from this side of the hill, plus some available grass as being on the leeward side is not so deeply covered in snow. We have seen well over 60 beast in this area in past years. But yesterday we could only see roughly 15. ended up a fair challenge to take a (photographic) shot of them , so below are the best I could get from a mile away.
Though Roe Deer are not uncommon in the field below our house, the bad weather does make them a bit more desperate for food & they tend to linger longer than normal. As you can see below the snow has all gone but this Buck was 300yards away & stayed long enough for me to get a few shots off.
