I got a shock this morning when I tipped a certain weight on the bathroom scales so I went for a long walk. The last time I walked to Sproughton from Ipswich town centre along the Gipping path must have been in early 2011. Whilst at Uni, I fell out of the habit.

The river had been running very high following the torrential rain we had a few days ago but the run off and a very hard frost meant that the soggy and previously submerged parts of the path were passable.

Approaching Sproughton Millenium park I noticed the the red head of a Green Woodpecker in a paddock. I was not out looking for wildlife as I was testing landscape shots.

Here is the Woodpecker.

Crop of said Woodpecker.

I decided to walk home on tarmacadam surfaces and visit a site of my very large Edgelands work to see if any festive fly-tipping had taken place. I was not disappointed but the rubbish was rubbish photogenically speaking, so I tried to emulate my position for some of the large format shots but without a stepladder (it would be quite a hike lugging that on a walk) I picked up this image.

I had looked hard for my reference litter of Cadbury’s Chomp bar but sadly this was not to be seen. It had possibly been smothered by leaf litter or stifled by moss.

Following on from that I walked a few hundred yards up the entrance to the British Sugar site that also featured in my Edgelands series. The light was not right for me as this venue needs to photographed with a setting sun so I set about looking and seeing what different rubbish had been tipped and what different plants were growing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move in the rubble and I moved over cautiously. An indignant looking weasel popped it’s head out the frozen waste then scurried off. Needless to say I was not ready for this but they appear to be very common so there may be opportunities going forward. Brownfield sites are a haven for wildlife which is perverse in some ways especially as this little carnivore obviously uses the fly-tipped waste as a good foraging source. This site has been bought by Ipswich Borough Council. I wonder if they will conduct a Phase 1 Habitat survey?

Anyway, seeing a weasel got me thinking of Wind in the Willows and an IT project I worked on where we all had nick-names from the book. I was Badger on account of my silvery striped hair at the time (entirely natural). There is not much left of that now. We did have a weasel, Ratty and Toad.

Happy days.