Wild winter.

 Today was really a case of revisitng the locations of yesterday. No one was travelling far in this weather but at least today the sunshine made a welcome appearance. There was no let up in the stong winds though.
 Walking back up to the Sleightholme lane I was quite surprised to see that since yesterdays visit an attempt had been made to clear the deep drifts. However, no sooner had the diggers done their best but it left a gap for more snow to take its place. Impressively, the dumped snow now formed high peaks on the lane edge and in the sunshine it looked like mountain peaks.

Mountain Ridge?

Apart from the fencepost which is above the wall height this could be mistaken for an unknown ridge of Munroes...out of scale of course.

 I made my way as yesterday along towards West Plantation. Today the drifts were much deeper so I decided to take some shots of the sheep which were sheltering along side the wall. The light snow coated their fleeces and made a dramatic scene.

Snow Sheep.

The balck and white simplicity seems to make this scene bleak and harsh, just how it was. Swaledale Sheep are a hardy breed and they stay out all year. Cold and snow is better than heavy rain I suppose.

More Snow

 Its late March and in recent weeks we have seen the return of birds such as Lapwings and even Curlews to their breeding grounds here in Teesdale. Well they got a real shock this morning, heavy overnight snow left us with a white world. This was possibly the heaviest single snowfall of the winter and a bit of a reversal of the seasons.
 Still, it was as ever a good chance to take the dogs out and carry the camera for any potential shots.

  The lane was pretty well covered with snow and the tractor tyres had left their usual pattern which seemed to point into the photo. Walking on I passed a field or two where the hardy Swaledale sheep were in the open. By chance there was a small neat group just on the other side of the wall. Their interest was taken by the dogs who were running in the field that I was in. All it took was for me to line up the shot with the distant farm behind and take the shot.

You can't plan this type of photograph, what it takes is having the awareness of the possibilities to turn a simple scene into a decent photo, and some luck.

Fame at last?

 Not really fame but its quite nice to get just two of my photos printed in our local paper. There were a selection of readers photos published this week and as well as the Dawn over Bowes photo (which doesnt really work in Black and White print in the paper) they decided to print this shot of winter sheep.

Winter Sheep

It certainly sums up the recent weather here in Teesdale