Stretham Pumping Station Details

A dull rainy day to visit Stretham Pumping Station gave some great shadows and colours for photographing the details of the machinery and tools. Stretham Old Engine is the last complete survivor of more than a hundred similar engines that worked the drainage network all over Cambridgeshire lifting the flood waters from the fields via the ditches and dykes draining it into the rivers.

 

Hoar Frost Hardwick Wood etc

After a foggy day yesterday, the temperature fell sharply overnight and we woke to a hoar frost this morning. Here some photos on my walk up to Hardwick Wood to do some Coppicing with the Wildlife Trust.

Sunset Fox and Birds

When I first moved to Toft in the late 1960s, a favourite sunset walk was always to the rushy marshy area now occupied by the Meridian golf club which had a very large Reed Bunting roost in the winter. I thought when they built the golf club in 1983 that this would be dispersed but it just moved a short way to an area of farmland that is left in the winter as it is too wet to plough. As I approached the roost area I was aware of a large number of pheasants getting very agitated and it was only when I got home and looked at the photos that I realised they had seen the Fox before me! All the birds were very jittery but images of Reed buntings, Goldfinch and Fieldfare (we have dozens of these at the moment).

First Hard Frosts of Winter

Our village allotments are always a great place on a frosty morning with lots of different textures and shapes to explore and record.

Our Red Kites and Winter Visitors

 We have a resident pair of Kites that fly around the house and are often seen in the local trees . This morning, the light was beautiful as they flew and then rested warming themselves in the early sunlight. There are also large numbers of Redwings and Fieldfare together with Starlings (probably immigrants) feeding on the abundant berries.