27th October, Snow but not the sort I expected!!

The forecasted Arctic blast arrived, a covering of snow did not though and I set out on an early morning woodland walk at Low Wood near Riddlesden. It was certainly chilly and I was well wrapped against the freezing wind. My first circuit of the woods revealed little, a few birds were chirping invisibly in the treetops and well out of range for my camera.

I decided to check the canal to see if there was anything of interest, luckily the wind dropped to a gentle breeze.

As the photograph shows at least the sun was shining and it was much warmer here, the usual mallards were about.

We usually get an influx of canada geese and I soon encountered a large group, obviously newly arrived judging by their nervous and twitchy behaviour. A closer look revealed a stranger in their midst...a beautiful snow goose.

These birds have probably flown from Alaska or Canada to winter here, the snow goose often travels with other geese according to my books.

I returned to the woods for another circuit...

It was bright and pleasant now and devoid of photographic subjects! A  lengthy perusal through the binoculars brought me distant views of jay and great spotted woodpecker, attempts at getting near enough to photograph them were laughable, I had my clumsy feet on!

I was on the verge of packing it in for the morning when a jay appeared from the undergrowth, it was feeding on acorns on the ground.

A grey squirrel offered me another opportunity...this too was partially obscured by an offending twig!

Time for home now, our lovely grand-daughters were joining us for the afternoon and evening and we had decided to take them to the pumpkin hunt at Bolton Abbey.

I dropped them and Mrs Wildlife off at the turning to the Cavendish Pavilion and drove down to Barden Scale to park the car thus avoiding the dreaded and extortionate estate parking charges. The plan was for me to walk downstream to meet them and then we would walk together back to the car.

The autumnal shades on the mature trees were beautiful...

 

 

I soon found the team and they were enjoying the hunt, the witches were not too difficult to find!

 

The pumpkins were numerous and not too hard to locate, gaps in interest were filled with leaf kicking battles and lots of laughter:-)

 

What a grand way to spend an afternoon!