I went for a superb walk on the Downs this morning.   The climb up Cardiac Hill yielded three fallow does and although the weather was damp and misty at the top I was glad to be there.  I then made my way to the old woodsman’s cottage now in ruins but where there are carpets of snowdrops at this time of year.  There are clumps of single and double ones in full bloom at the moment and it is always a joy to see them as they are the harbingers of spring.

Then on to where there is an active badgers’ sett in the woods before I made my way across the South Downs Way and onto Bepton Down.

As I approached the teaser rams on part of the SSSI I noticed two reddish brown four-legged creatures amongst them.  I paused and leaning on a gate I took some rather blurry photographs.   I was a distance away and it was misty but I managed to capture another aspect of spring which one does not normally see.   I suppose I was down wind and so the pair did not get a whiff of me.  The fact that they were out in the middle of the morning suggested that they had other things on their mind.  I watched them for about twenty minutes until they vanished from sight over the brow of the hill.

Magical moments indeed.