The enchanting sights and sounds of the countryside on a frosty morning

Ispent a delightful morning last week rambling around the farm in the frost. It was the first bit of hard weather that we’ve had in a long time, and certainly the first since we got ducks last spring. Now, ducks are garrulous, vibrant company, and their eggs are a big hit, with himself for eating and the rest of us baking, but boy do they make a mucky mess.

We put a load of 804 stone inside the gate to their run but the recent rains turned the rest of it into a quagmire.

When I went to feed them one evening the previous week, my feet slipped out from under me as slickly as if I’d been practising for months.

Though, at least, being so soft, the only damage was to my dignity.

The frost had set the fowl prints into a gripped floor, turning a previously perilous mission into a doddle.

Fowl fed, and myself wrapped up warm in the thin sunshine, I was heading down the yard towards the fields when a sight stopped me in my tracks.

On each of a pair of black hanging basket holders either side of a shed door was perched a rook, so still and positionally similar that they looked like statues.

I was torn between savouring the moment and getting my camera to capture it. As I turned back to the house, they took off.

On then through a cow and calf shed. One of the most peaceful sights and sounds on the farm is of a cow lying on a fresh bed of straw chewing her cud, slowly and rhythmically, with her calf stretched out sleeping nearby.

Making my way across the three-corner paddock, buzzing from the joy of a high, cloud-free sky, a few lines of an Enid Blyton poem came to mind:

‘Come out, come out, while the sky is red,

Over the crunching fields to tread, Ere the frost in the kindling sun lies dead,

Sing, hey for a frosty morning!’

The frost-dusted grass was only broken by cowpats, looking like sugar-sprinkled chocolate cakes, though they probably shouldn’t be mistaken for such.

Dew drops on branch tips of a driedout dock stem glistened like baubles.

Approaching the Wild Place (a pond surrounded by marsh and woodland) I heard what sounded like large drops of rain falling slowly.

It was actually coming from deeply tanned, crisp beech and Spanish chestnut leaves glancing off branches as they fell to the ground.

The pond itself is home to hundreds of seasonal visitors, mainly shoveller, mallard and teal, which are an amazing sight in flight.

Turning to look back towards the yard, my set of dark footprints reminded me of the broken double line on a road; though either the road was very twisty or I was veering all over it.

I then came to the GLAS Wild Bird Cover. It looks dull at this time of year but there were plenty of birds

— a mix of finches along with a few yellowhammers — some feeding, but others perched on the few grain stalks poking their heads above the majority or on the nearby hedge, all facing towards the sun, soaking it up.

Every step of the way, I was accompanied by Timmy our terrier, who took great pleasure in the seasonal experiences, including the sight of a red-regal-headed cock pheasant who raced off on our approach.

By the time I got back home, the sun having arced low across the sky, all signs of my earlier passage had been erased; but what lingered were memories of a blissful morning’s meandering on the land.

The cowpats looked like sugarsprinkled chocolate cakes, though they probably shouldn’t be mistaken for such