White Fields and Footprints

In the cold grey morning, a thin, slushy layer of snow lay over the fields.

Rabbits left sets of footprints, each resembling the tortured face in Munch`s painting The Scream .

Bird prints scattered over field and garden.........

....where a fox had trotted over to the fence and wriggled underneath.

Oak branches topped with snow.

Out in the lane, a "snow stilt" had fallen from the hollow of a Forest pony`s hoof.

A scattering of snow lay on hawthorn twigs, on bracken....

........and on flowering gorse.

A bleak, cold heath........

....where a group of ponies walked, so carefully, towards a gorse thicket and the chance of young shoots for breakfast.

The young grey mare will be five years old this spring. She was born on the Forest and still lives with her mother and a familiar family group.

She is the half sister of our own Grey One........

...who was breakfasting in more comfort beyond the field hedge.

Jay, his friend, followed me around, still chewing his morning hay, while I photographed footprints in the snow.

Woody was alert and watching in the still, white fields.

In the garden, camelias festooned with snow had browned and frozen in the cold morning.

Later, the thaw began. Water dripped off trees and rooftops all afternoon, but there is still frozen snow on the fields tonight, under a bright winter moon.