A small walk of discovery...Auchlin Mine Wood

 We took our chance between storms Malik and Corrie for a walk where we had seen cars parked and dogs being walked...and found an ex mining site similar to Hannahston reserve, but less well cared for and smaller.

Not many birds to be seen today. Post and pre storms...one crow. One Robin and three Fieldfares!!

It could do with a roof!

A good view..but the trees have grown a bit in the past 20 years

It's a bit bleak...

Time to return to the car, as the weather began to turn!

Getting out

 We woke to weather warnings....and they were right...

And within five minutes it arrived!

Starting fine. Then large flakes...but just before lunch it eased off and we headed out for a legstretch on Pirate's usual route.

We saw bluetits and sparrows, a tree creeper and wrens. No dippers or wagtails, the river was still quite high.

As we came back up the field, the clouds lifted

Goat Fell, with snow right down to sea level.

More showers are coming over

At present the sun is bright and warm....from indoors!! There is a chill breeze creeping around my feet as I write...the back door doesn't fit perfectly. Not ideal as heating costs rise.  Still, our rent is low....swings and roundabouts!!

Catching the weather

 Yesterday we managed to catch a weather window!!

The wind was still cold and cutting sharp..so a mask was very useful.

Read those photos in reverse... Blogger just surprises you just when you relax...!!

We were aiming to see how the bird population was, but the smaller birds were mostly absent, apart from a couple of wrens in a sheltered spot, one buzzard that looked to be hunting mice or something, and a buzzard being chased away by a crow.

We think that this is the route of one old track between farms, and we explored further along it to where it crossed with another.

We came back by an old smallholding, Carlavrock..a Laverock is a lark.

And saw a different, noisy type of bird...

Heading back up to our village we saw the weather window closing..

Home before the light sprinkling of snow....on a frozen car...

Last night the frost had thawed, early this morning there as no frost...until we got up and the car was frozen again!!

Today we have been sorting more Stuff!!

We have two lawn mowers that we need to shift...Pirate hauled them out of the shed so that I could photograph them.  Then hopefully we can find someone in the Old Lawnmower Club who might like them and give them some TLC!! 

No point having a mountain of mowers when you only have a small patch at home to cut!!