Yet more snow.

We've been snowed in now for a few days - well, I say snowed in, it's more like iced in to be honest: the road outside is completely impossible to drive in our cars and we're not exactly a priority area for the gritters. Not that it matters too much, as we are both able to work from home, but it gets a bit tedious! We decided that we ought to shop for some staple foods today, so walked to Bovey - the scenic way - and did a little birding on the way. Interestingly, there is a significant movement of Lapwing and 'winter thrushes' (Fieldfare & Redwing) going on along the valley, with perhaps 150 Lapwing in a couple of wind-cleared fields and a further 50 or so heading vaguely westwards, hoping to escape the freezing weather. We must also have totalled some 1,500+ Redwing and perhaps 200 Fieldfare, all rampaging through the small patches of leaves the sun had warmed in the woods. Spectacular stuff.

Icicles beside a small roadside stream

 

Redwing fossicking on a hedgebank.

 

Lapwing and Fieldfare making the most of snow-free areas

 

Looking to Haytor from Trough Lane (pronounced 'trow lane', for some inscrutable local reason...)