At last the snow is melting, we've been snowbound here for twelve days. The icicles from the eaves reached the ground forming a curtain of ice outside each window.
The snow revealed lots of animal tracks, otters along the river and fox everywhere. One set of tracks puzzled me for a while, I suspected polecat and this was more or less confirmed when I followed them along the hedge and saw them enter a rabbit hole.
A little shrew ran across the snow looking quite exposed, then dived through the snow into the side of an anthill giving me the chance to study its tracks.
Dippers are still active on the river and tawny owls seem to be doing ok with one roosting in the tunnel entrance and two more daytime calling around the farmyard.
I fear for the barn owls, they seem less able to survive these long snowy spells.
