An approaching front

The first really sharp frost of the season, but luckily I remembered to allow time to scrape the ice off the windscreen before taking Ben to the coach at 7.30am. 

After dropping Alex at work, I went for a bracing walk along the bank of the River Glen at Baston Fen. I must admit I'd forgotten quite how cold an exposed river bank in the fens can feel, but the glorious sunshine and the endless silence more than made up for the tingling fingers and frozen cheeks. 

A kestrel skimmed low over the fields, and a snipe exploded suddenly from a soggy borrow-pit. A group of dabchick were poddling in the river, where I also heard a mysterious plop - perhaps a water vole - and then saw a distant mammalian head bob out of the water for a brief moment. On the way back to the car two jack-snipe erupted from a shaded ditch, zig-zagging across the marsh before descending as suddenly as they arose, into dense vegetation.

All through my walk I watched a weather front approaching, marked by a tell-tale band of cumulo-cirrus clouds. But what particularly intrigued me were the dark rays beneath the front, converging over the distant forest. It all looked quite evil...