A Winters Day
The Autumn colours are still brilliant this year, the leaves have stayed on the trees for longer than usual and when the sun has actually appeared the woods have been dazzling. On a visit this week the air was cold and the ground was colder still with small patches of ice on any standing water. It was a good day to clear out some of the nest boxes I have put up over the years. While not strictly necessary I like to remove the old nesting material and that way get shot any of the parasites that might be lingering. I opened one box and was confronted with a mass of leaves and bits of dead bracken filling it completely. I gave it an exploratory investigation and was promptly confronted by two pairs of small, black eyes, belonging to two Wood Mice, who seeing me, immediately jumped out and fled into the leaf litter. I felt very guilty for disturbing them. Another box had clearly been attacked by a woodpecker. Made of a material called Woodcrete, the box was no match f
