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First Frost

We had our first serious frost of the season last night. I went out today and it was glorious with the later autumn colours and a light that an artist would die for. Naturally the phone had been left on charge so I oouldn't take any pictures. The frost was burning off at the start of the walk and the sun catching the moisture on an autumn sown crop revealed what looked like the trail of a giant slug across the field. Despite having watched the Horror Channel yesterday I looked for a more prosaic explanation and the disturbance at the edge of the field gave it away as a wandering badger. Throughout the walk there were plenty of signs of badger activity and they haven['t found it necessary to make any serious incursions into the gardens yet. Walking in some of our local green lanes the sun coming through the branches meant that many birds were only in silhouette. The rather exotic small black bird turned out to be nothing more exciting than a great tit when I shifted my viewpoint. I was lucky though to see a wren sized shape but the tail wasn't cocked so again I changed the viewpoint to get a quick glimpse of a goldcrest. In the garden a blackbird has been added to the species count, a cock bird that lurks in the shrubs by the bottom fence and has ignored the food out out so far. There are still plenty of leaves on the plants down there and I have had some tantilizing glimpses of small brown birds that may have been house sparrows but I haven't had a clear view for an id.
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