puddleshark

Blue sky. Fairweather cloud. There's still a little warmth in the November sun, once the frost has lifted. But it's just a temporary lull between storms. The fields are soggy underfoot, the gateways churned to deep mud by cattle and by tractors. The paths have ambitions to become streams.

I took a walk along the muddy underhill path, to one side hedges red with haws and hips, to the other side a tangle of Old Man's Beard and hillside scrub:

The Old Man is drying his beard in the sunlight:

Old Man's Beard (Clematis vitalba).

Hillside scrub. All prickly things the sheep do not eat: brambles, briars, thornbushes and gorse.

Between them, the ivy and the brambles have almost completely consumed the old lime kiln.

Sat for a while in the sunshine, listening to the robins singing their winter songs. Failed to take photographs of jays and of a raven being mobbed by jackdaws.

I did take a photo of a robin. I always take a photo of a robin. Robins insist. They pose to have their photo taken.

Yellowhammer.

I was shooting right into the sun, so the landscape photos were not very successful today either.

The venerable old ash tree that watches over the gate is still with us, though I don't know for how much longer. Two younger ash trees further along the track have succumbed to ash dieback.