DECEMBER IN THE COUNTRY
PICTURES WILDLIFE PEOPLE & PLACES COUNTRY KNOW-HOW FOOD
› Meet Santa aboard a festive steam train. › Make beeswax food wraps. › ID guide to river bridges.
THE JOYS OF A WINTER WALK
A dawn walk in the depths of winter offers so much beauty and mystery. You see the countryside in a completely new light, such as here along the River Stour in Dedham Vale on the Essex-Suffolk border, which is famously green and lush in summer. Creeping frost transforms the sullen and slumbering vegetation while extraordinary peach and plum tints exploding across the sky reflect in the still water. Magical. Seek out more great winter walks on page 75.
TUPPED EWES IN THE SNOW
With the help of his Border collie, farmer Bill Cowperthwaite feeds his flock of Swaledales to help them through a sudden snowfall on Malham Moor in the Yorkshire Dales. Note the different colours on the ewe’s rumps; this is raddle, a paint that shows that the ewes have been mated with, or ‘tupped’. Each ram or tup’s chest is daubed with a different coloured raddle and, as each mates with a ewe, he leaves his mark. This tells the farmer not only which ewes have successfully mated but also which tup has been most effective.
DRESSING UP FOR CHRISTMAS
Step back in time this winter and attend a Victorian country house Christmas party at Uppark House and Garden in West Sussex. The exposed location of this 18th-century house on the South Downs ridge means winters here can be particularly harsh; all the more reason to warm up inside with festive food and dazzling decorations. Here in the dining room, amid panelling, pilasters and mirrored niches – designed by Humphry Repton – a costumed interpreter dresses a Christmas tree for her expectant guests.
HAUNTING TWILIGHT
A barn owl hunts in the twilight at Titchwell Marsh RSPB Reserve on the north Norfolk coast, which is also an excellent place to catch up with winter waders and wildfowl. With prey scarce and days short and often overcast, barn owls can often be seen hunting in what passes for daylight in the depths of winter. The owls tend to hunt field voles, common shrews and wood mice.