This morning volunteer Graham Usher and myself braved the -11C temperature and took a walk around the reserve doing our monthly boundary check. It was a beautiful morning, despite the bitter cold, with the whole landscape white with snow and wonderfully formed frost on the trees, scrub and other vegetation.
At the south end of the reserve, a lovely male bullfinch added some colour to the scene as numerous fieldfares and blackbirds made their way through the hedgerows feeding on fruit. Hares are always plentiful at Langford and look brilliant bounding through the deep snow. The regular group of three roe deer made an appearance for us at the edge of Phase 3 as they ran right in front of where we were walking, not even noticing our presence! They stopped on the path about 150 yards in front of us and stood there for a few minutes, giving us plenty of time to appreciate them!
As we made our way around to Phase 1, the fog started dropping and visibility was reduced to a couple of hundred yards, but as we approached the silt lagoons a group of wildfowl was collected on the one area of the reserve that wasn't frozen! We counted 20 tufted duck, 3 mallards, a pair of pochard and 1 male and 2 female goldeneye.
But the best sighting of the day....a surprise curlew that flew over us, calling on our way back to the office. The bird looked and sounded great with it's long down-curved bill and hauntingly beautiful call through the fog.