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Nature Adventures - Winter!
Winter Nature Adventures
A nature adventure can happen anywhere, anytime.
Winter can be a cold, a bleak frozen landscape . . . but for most of the time our winter months are damp and wet, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to see.
In town you may notice dense, chattering flocks of starlings that come in to roost every evening. Watch for their incredible synchronised flight displays, intended to confuse birds of prey.
As any park or woodland will reveal, nature is already preparing for spring. The large and very sticky buds of horse chestnut and the matt black buds of ash can be seen everywhere.
Look out for waders on the seashore: black and white oystercatchers, long billed godwits and small sanderlings that run along at the edge of the tide. Peregrine falcons often winter beside the sea preying on the flocks of waders – so keep your eyes open. 
If you get a snowy spell make the most of it and go and look for tracks. The tracks of a fox placing it’s feet carefully in it’s own tracks (and much neater and more oval in shape than a dog) look as if he has hopped along on one leg.
Badgers, although less active than at other times of the year, are often out and about through the winter months leaving big bear-like prints in snow or mud. A woodland badger sett isn’t hard to track down when the woodland floor is bare, as badgers leave such well-trodden paths. Look for a collection of large holes dug into sand or clay. There will be claw marks around some of them and tracks. Most easy to recognised will be the large spoil heaps of soil at the mouth of each hole, left as the badgers improve and enlarge their deep tunnels.
Winter is a good time to listen for the calling of tawny owls: One owl calls “Keeewick!” “Hoooo-hooo” answers another. Pellets are regurgitated prey remains and can be found around likely fence posts, trees and farm buildings. They contain their victims’ bones, neatly packaged in their own fur. Pellets can be teased apart to reveal the animals your local owls have been eating. Remember – a nature adventure can happen anywhere, any time.
Mick Manning
These seasonal nature tips are based on Nature Adventures an inspirational family nature book written and illustrated by Mick Manning and Brita Granström and published by Frances Lincoln. Specialising in lyrical non-fiction picture books Mick and Brita have developed their unique award-winning approach together over 20 years and have based this book on their own nature walks with their family of four young sons. Find out more about their books at www.mickandbrita.com.
Text copyright Manning and Granström 2011
Images reproduced with kind permission from the book Nature Adventures and copyright 2011 Manning and Granström/Frances Lincoln Publishing]