Although the River Gartempe is still well and truly frozen over in parts, especially around Saulge, the relatively mild temperatures have induced some kind of thaw and it's been good to throw off my second duvet of a night! I walked down by the river yesterday morning and took a few pictures of the river 'defrosting' - wrong lens with me to be honest but a few came out ok and this one in particular seems to capture the re-emergence of flowing water from the cold ice.
A bit further along the river bank I disturbed what I thought was a Hen Harrier,which proceeded to ghost across a field (they're always flying away from me!) and then settled on a tree branch some 200 meters away. At that distance any lens is going to be tested and whilst these couple of pics won't win any prizes with the full 500ml zoom, it does reveal that this is in fact not a Hen Harrier at all but a very pale phase Eurasian Buzzard!
