Frost at last

Been waiting for a while now for the frosty mornings to begin and this morning I was rewarded with a white frosty world.

 I had forgotten that this also means I have to defrost the car before I can go anywhere and, of course, the de-icer was nearly empty.

I was headed up to Birdoswald, less than two miles from home, so I made up the time I'd lost.

Birdoswald has a lovely stretch of Hadrian's Wall and unusually you don't have to climb anywhere to see it, you're out of the car park and there it is.

I love the view along the line of the Wall to Walltown Crags on the horizon. It's a bit of an optical illusion, Walltown looks to be so close but it's a good 5 miles away.

At this time of the year the sun rises to the south of this bit of Wall and as it sits in a bit of a dunk the light only catches the top couple of courses of stone.

I had the company of another photographer this morning, nice to compare notes - Liam is from Willowford Farm and had walked up to Birdoswald to meet up with me.

Nice light and a lovely morning to be out, I heard a buzzard calling and large flocks of fieldfares  flew over our heads.

We pottered around taking shots, getting Michael's texel sheep to pose for us, then at 8am we headed our seperate ways.

Liam to let the hens out and me, off to Chapel House Farm to photograph Jamie's tups while they were all together and looking at their best. Soon they'll be in with the ewe's working hard to produce next season's lambs.

They're the Black Face breed, often confused with Swaledales - especially by me.

I was trying to catch them standing 'four square' and for a while they humoured me (I did have a bucket of feed) but after a while they got bored and wandered off.  Got some 'nice' shots but I don't know if they'll meet Jamie's high standard :)
I liked this one, he looks as though he's laughing at my efforts.

Catch you later.
Joan