Winter's Return


Just days after I returned from H&M, clutching a bag of T-shirts for the spring, winter made a brief, but cruel return to England. Temperatures dipped to -2.4°C, as a slow-moving band of snow tracked across the Channel from northern France, depositing powdery, dry snow over the south-east.  I was lucky enough to be driven very ably by Alex Lawrence in a Range Rover, to Abbots Wood.

Alex brought along some L series telephoto lenses for training on deer and birds. Wildlife photography is about patience, tolerance of uncertainty and being in the right place at the right time. Walking ahead of me, Alex spotted a robin on a tree branch; the bird obligingly posed for reasons completely unrelated to our needs as photographers. It was great fun walking around the forest in snowy conditions and good company too. I certainly wouldn't have made it to Abbots Wood without 4x4 transport.

On our return journey to Brighton, we saw plenty of accidents, abandoned cars, people having rages and familiar locations smothered with impeccably beautiful snow. Of note, was the number of stranded BMW cars on the by-pass. Rear wheel drive cars perform very badly in snow. My advice, if you drive a BMW, is to work from home during snowy weather. The alternative is one of many hours, stranded in remote places, gesturing at traffic, using words beginning with C, which rhyme with James Blunt.

Snowy Robin

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