Another day, another sheep pic!

Taken on our walk to Stainborough Castle Gardens at lunchtime - this is the field where the early lambs were born, though they're getting quite big now. I quite liked the patterns formed by the field boundaries on this image. Walking in the snow was hard going and as we approached the Wentworth Castle Hall I feared that the cafe would be closed. (There was no one in sight as we approached the grounds.) Fortunately for us it wasn't, so we filled up on good bread and some very substantial carrot soup. I think they were only just clearing the long drive of snow - so very few people had made it as far as the cafe and gardens.

Big garden birdwatch this morning - the stars were the Long-tailed tits, of which there were 13. Seeing them is just good luck as we often see them in the garden but then they move on to gardens new!

Rather than what we saw - it's what we didn't see that is probably more significant! No Great Tits or Coal Tits, we've always had them in previous years and no Greenfinches. Also we haven't seen a Nuthatch this year, which we usually do in the winter and the Lesser-spotted woodpecker seems to have disappeared.

I also had a walk with my camera and tripod earlier this morning (the sun was shining) but I haven't downloaded anything from my Cannon camera yet. The snow was melting fast and running down the road in torrents. My final faux-pas was to stand on an area that looked like slush as I emerged from the field only to find it was deep water that covered the top of my boot!