Monday 17th February - Beeding muddy

Grey , overcast and bit of rain this morning. So for a couple of hours this afternoon I went to Upper Beeding to have a walk around the partly flooded fields either side of the Adur, known as Beeding Brooks. My first difficulty was finding somewhere to access the various footpaths as the Pound Lane access was under water and the road bridge across the Adur was closed for repairs, so I eventually drove through Steyning and parked off Kings Barn Lane. The footpath to the pedestrian bridge across the river was fairly wet which you could walk around, but the mud was the problem. It wasn't over boot-high thick, but it didn't need to be for the mud Urchins which sit beneath the mud to grab hold of the wellies in a sucking manoeuvre, which results in a toppling motion. I briefly lost a Welly but avoided ending face-down in the mud and luckily had a fence post nearby to rescue myself on. - Drama over, I crossed the footbridge and walked up the river bank footpath. A couple of fields down and I found 3 Short-Eared Owls in the boundary hedge, all preening ( a bit too distant and too grey for pictures but very nice in the scope) and was the main reason why I came here. The floods also held a good number of wildfowl, Pintail, Shoveler, Wigeon and Teal all in good numbers. a  flock of Redwing and Fieldfare were fairly active  and several Little Egrets were in the distance. I didn't linger for a Barn Owl to appear as the weather again was closing in... again.