During the last five weeks I have spent time in the Ribble valley trying to attract a Great Grey Shrike to food. A friend with a farm near Clitheroe has a cat that regularly catches mice and voles. These I placed on a stump for the Shrike to eat. Unfortunately the Shrike had to find them first and I spent long hours under a camouflage cloth (including a white one in the snow) waiting for it to appear to film it but I had no success. The closest it came was when it flew past thirty yards away and I am still convinced that had it seen the prey it couldn’t have resisted taking it and placing it in its larder. However, you can’t win every time. click here

With high pressure all week and  a low temperature of  -5°C  it made  perfect conditions to go looking for Jack Snipe. The aim is to locate a Jack Snipe before it flies off and this I achieved early in the week as the Snipe roosted in an iron water ditch. For five consecutive days I was able to return to the ditch, locate the bird, take a few photos and then leave without it flushing. As Jack Snipe feed nocturnally these are roosting diurnal birds and to prove this I returned to one five hours later and it had only moved one inch!

All was going well until day five when a Common Snipe was also in the ditch. This bird exploded out of the ditch upon seeing me and in so doing also flushed the Jack Snipe who has not returned since!

On one occasion the sun was shining on the back of the camera so it was difficult to see through the screen. Whilst I knew the Jack Snipe was in the middle of the picture you can imagine my surprise when I downloaded the photos to the computer and could see part of the head then the tail of a second bird!! I have included these in this weeks gallery but would have preferred a single picture of two birds together.

After last years winter of no snow or frost it has been a revelation to work with this little gem from scandinavia. Click here

This week the early flowering snowdrops and gorse have been covered by several inches of snow topped off with frost. These stunning arctic conditions always remind me of the pristine beauty of Spitsbergen with the only missing ingredient being Polar Bears so this weeks gallery is a short selection of photos I took when I was last there in 2009. According to some predictions there will be no Polar Bears left in twenty years time so now is the time to start saving up to go before it is too late- sailing through the Arctic pack-ice at mid night is an experience that is impossible to describe.

The Big garden birdwatch last weekend was a disappointment in respect of the number of birds in the garden. The surprise birds were a Grey Wagtail, feeding on the lawn, and a Nuthatch, neither of which are common birds in our garden. Although numbers were down we did reach 20 species which was respectable on a mild day.

Elsewhere last week two hundred Lapwings were still using the roof of the local industrial estate and in the woods Woodcock are regularly encountered.Click here

Whether you like them or not you have to feel sorry for the Canada Geese when the canals and lakes freeze over as they have done this week. On our local canal more than one hundred were stood around on the ice with little or no food available. They must be able to survive long periods without food as you very rarely see any dead Geese lying around or perhaps the local foxes have taken the carcasses away?

Another benefit of the recent period of ice and snow is that the local Golf course was closed and turned into a wonderland of footprints and tracks. Two Woodcock and seven Roe Deer were seen one day with a couple of photos of the deer in this weeks gallery. A photo of a Woodcock in winter is my ultimate challenge and is a feat that few photographers achieve.

A visit to the Ribble valley during the week produced a good sunrise over Pendle and twenty Bramblings in a beech wood near Clitheroe. Even more surprising were two foxes playing in a field alongside the busy M66 motorway. I wonder how long they will survive? Click here

Laid up with a chest infection all week is normally bad news but on the 14th, by watching the garden all day, I was able to record an exceptional days feeding.It had been frosty overnight with an inch of snow on the ground at dawn followed by sleet for most of the day. These are always good conditions for feeding birds in our garden and by dusk twenty three different species had fed. The Goldfinches kept coming and coming with an all-time record of forty one present by mid-afternoon. Other birds that visited during the day included Willow Tit, Sparrowhawk, Nuthatch, Long Tailed Tit and Reed Bunting plus all the rest! Click here

With the arrival of the freezing weather at the year end I was finally able to search for one of the most illusive of all winter visitors the Jack Snipe. It took five mornings before I made contact with one and in typical Jack Snipe fashion it flew off when I was only three feet away. Last winter with no prolonged frost or snow there were none in the marsh where they have appeared during the last forty five years, conditions have to be severe to bring them in from the surrounding fields.

On Hopwood there are very few Woodcock this winter with only one being seen on the 5th. The corvid roost continues to grow with more than five hundred being present most nights.
Along the motorway link road in the last couple of days both Buzzard and Kestrel have been seen to catch prey from convenient low down trees.

This weeks gallery is of Merlin that I filmed under licence in Bowland a couple of years ago. Can you spot the flat fly on the male? Click here