It doesn't really compare to the whiteout of last winter, but it's cold enough, and the East Anglia peninsula is now capped with an icy crust of snow.







But food is plentiful for some. Fieldfares have been visiting the berry bush outside my kitchen window, providing (for me) a rare opportunity to see these beautiful thrushes up close.





Like the redwings...



...fieldfares are winter visitors, coming here from Scandinavia. Blackbirds are present all year round.



As indeed are song thrushes



Not a bad species list for one bush!
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Over the years, I've had a few opportunities to photograph foxes against pure snowy backdrops, but it's the nature of the game that you always want more However, my fox sightings drop dramatically in these kind of conditions, even in the Surrey Hills. Norwich has plenty of foxes, but they are much more nocturnal than their southern cousins. But their feet still betray them (Belgian shepherd included for scale.)



And down on the frozen broad, someone else is leaving footsteps on the ice!





The otters must be fishing in the river at present. This trail led out of the frozen lake and into the snowbank, where the typical bounding gait of a mustelid was clear.


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Of course, some mammals are easier to approach

It could be winter; it's been such a strange few weeks for weather that it's hard to be sure. The air is bitingly cold. The land's slippery with frost and ice feathers the fringes of the river and lake But while donkeys huddle in their stable...



...the wild creatures must still hunt for food. Kingfishers are very active on the river - possibly a little too active from the point of view of a photographer and usually all that I see is that flash of cobalt-and-orange as they swoop across the water. Usually, but not always



This one perched opposite me, and was rather reminscient of a still-hunting owl or hawk as it studied the river for fish.





Kingfishers aren't the only hunters along the river, of course. Otters are present, somewhere, and of course there are grey herons, even if sometimes they give the impression that they're out of the water because it's simply too cold.





Meanwhile, gulls practice the flypast