We try at least four times a week to walk around the whole farm. Although the farm is only sixty acres, it is in a long strip, and it is more like walking a hundred acres, with each field having different aspects.
The farm is in a very beautiful secluded valley. On entering before getting to the farmhouse and buildings, there is a three hundred metres driveway, with the lakes to one side, that opens up at the end to open fields, like entering Shangri-La. On both sides there are woods that line the sides of the valley, that really does make it haven for wildlife.
It does not matter how many times we walk the valley, we never tire of it, we are always looking for new tracks and foot prints of the wildlife, little bits of badger or fox hair that may get snagged on the barbed wire as they have gone under. We have taken out most of the barbed wire, but a little has been missed. With the different season smells and plants, there always seems to be something to talk about on the walks.
In the woods you often hear the breaking of twigs and catch a glimpse of the deer that trod on them. This time of year you can hear the Buzzard menacing the Rooks, and see the Rooks mobbing the Buzzard in retaliation, determined to chase it away. As big as the Buzzard is the Rooks nearly always win the confrontations, out numbering the Buzzard by many.
It looks very much like we have missed the snow, when we do get it, you can see animal and bird tracks in places that you have never seen before. The Badgers have well worn tracks that they have followed, some say for hundreds of years. The tracks in the snow show just how many Deer, Fox and Badgers have visited the valley, that you would not have known about if it had not snowed.
A question on an entry yesterday, asked the what Deer have been on the cameras over the past few days. The three are Roe deer they are smaller than the Red, now that you have seen the Roe you will know immediately when you see a Red.