Les Neiges d'antan

FALLING SNOW DID NOTHING to curb the enthusiasm of a Song Thrush, which we noticed for the first time in our garden, singing its thrice-repeated, eccentricly varied song at first from the top of next door's conifer, then from our crab and later from the weeping willow of the other neighbour.

Some two inches of snow first thing. We haven't had a lot of snow in recent years, in fact this morning was the first opportunity for George, my niece's two and a half year old son, to build a snowman.

The snow didn't last long here in the valley. By mid-morning it had changed to light rain and, by mid-afternoon, it remained only on higher ground to the south and west, for instance on the prominent sandstone ridge of Woolley Edge, seen here from a lesser sandstone outcrop, Storrs Hill, where the Gorse has been in flower for over a month.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail;'richard@daelnet.co.uk'