I have never before owned a bridge camera but the thought of having just one lightweight camera that can take close ups of invertebrates as well as zooming in on distant birds, and everything in between, is very alluring indeed.

This week I have bought a well-reviewed Sony RX10 bridge camera which can apparently handle anything from 24mm to 600mm all on its very own:

I also have this manual and am determined to learn how to properly use this new camera:

I’ve only just started to work my way through this book but so far so good

Before the storm of this weekend we drove a little way up the coast to the hide at the Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory scrape to put my new bridge camera through its paces. We hadn’t been there for ages:

It was a bitterly cold day and the scrape was frozen:

It has been very cold in the meadows as well:

But we were pleased that the ground was frozen hard on the day that the hedgerows were cut this week, so that the heavy tractor made less of a mess with its tyres.

There is about a kilometre of hedgerow surrounding and within the meadows but half of this has now matured into trees heavily covered in ivy and has not been maintained as a hedge for many years. The other half that we can still keep as a hedge is cut every two years.

As the tractor was working in the meadows, a buzzard flew in to see if whatever was going on had thrown up any opportunities for a meal:

This is probably the same buzzard seen on a different day:

When I looked at the trail cameras after the hedges were cut, the tractor had made many cameo appearances:

A pair of bullfinch have been coming to this baking tray for a few days now. This is an unusual species for the meadows, although a female bullfinch was ringed here two or three years ago. Male and female:

The male bullfinch is a most beautiful bird:

Numerous blackbirds are also appearing on the cameras, many of which will just be here for the winter, across from the colder parts of Europe:

One of them has fallen foul of a sparrowhawk though and won’t be leaving in the spring:

The blackcaps that are here in the winter have come from Central Europe and will also be returning there before long. They will be replaced by our breeding blackcaps who are currently seeing out the rest of the winter in North Africa:

Another seasonal visitor is this woodcock, escaping the extreme conditions of Finland and Russia at this time of year:

I don’t know where our yellowhammers go for the winter but they start reappearing in January to prepare for the breeding season and the first pair arrived back this week:

A fox coming into the meadows from the densely vegetated cliff:

I think this is the same fox and unfortunately it has mange:

It has been very cold in the wood as well:

Our winter work in the wood has been given a little boost by a woodsman who needed some hazel poles to do hedgelaying elsewhere. He has coppiced a row of twelve hazel stools and made a dead hedge at the back with what he doesn’t need. The poles he wants are still lying on the ground here, waiting for him to take them away to lay his hedge:

The tawny owls are showing interest in the box where they raised two chicks in 2022:

But, as usual, there is a lot of squirrel activity there as well:

It will be interesting to see what happens this spring.

The old cherry tree has produced a lot of resin in response to green woodpeckers drilling out a new hole last year:

I wonder what will happen here as well?

Things were pretty tempestuous as Storm Isha blew her way across the country this weekend. Another small tree came down across the access track to the wood but other than that we got off fairly lightly:

It was a welcome opportunity to stay inside and continue to learn about my new bridge camera. When the weather improves, I want to be ready to go out, camera in hand, and take some photos I am pleased with.