THE countryside for the last few weeks has been at its most drab.

Sparkling frosts or even the odd covering of snow can really brighten up January and make it a month to saver but when the weather is relatively mild and bathed in lashing rain even I find it hard to find something to enthuse about. However, with a good dollop of luck, even rainy days can provide you with really special wildlife moments.

A good winter soaking can often lead to the threat of hyperthermia, even to the most hardened of our winter wildlife so whenever the opportunity presents, wild animals often choose to ride out the rain in as sheltered a spot as possible. This usually means going out in the hope of spotting wildlife in the rain can be a rather fruitless exercise.

However, when an animal has found itself a sheltered spot, it is often rather reluctant to give it up, unless it really has to. So it is sometimes possible to get some special encounters as the animals will allow you to get uncharacteristically close while they make the most of the shelter they have found.

I would love to say it is through my skill and guile that I have used this knowledge to have some fantastic real close up and personal encounters with our winter wildlife, but it has usually been sheer blind luck and a pressing need for me to take a little shelter from a particularly vicious squall of rain.

The most recent was with a buzzard out on Puxton Marsh in Kidderminster. Before this, I was wet and starting to get cold. The river was rising and I had seen absolutely no wildlife and the rain was starting to drive down.

I made the decision to duck under the bulbous brow of a willow pollard. As I started to move under the canopy of the tree, I spotted a pair of large greeny yellow talons. It was a second or so before my eyes could make out the shape of this magnificently large and extremely well camouflaged body of the buzzard and a moment more before I picked out its large deep black eyes that were watching me with great intent. I froze and hoped to spend some time in this predator's company but its nerve broke and it spread its broad and powerful wings and took to the sky. I have to admit I felt a little guilty.

I had a similar encounter out on the heathland of the Rifle Range but this time it was with a tawny owl and the tree I had decided would shelter me from the rain was a large mature silver birch standing proud on the heath.

This tree had a kink in its trunk and I had decided I could sit on this with my back to the trunk and be relatively sheltered from the worst of the weather. I sat down with a sigh of relief and a moment or so later I began to feel I was being watched.

Looking up I soon found the source the vivid yellow and black eyes of a tawny owl. We both looked at each other with rain running down our faces and we seemed to share a moment of empathy and understanding. I shared this shelter with my new found companion for a good 15 minutes before my seat got to uncomfortable and I had to make a move and with a parting glance I left the owl to ride out this wet weather in the shelter of the tree as I made my way home.

11:33am Tuesday 15th January 2008

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