This legacy version of the site is not maintained.  An updated version of the Chobham description and history site can be found at www.chobham.info

Ronald Blythe writing in The Countryman ..............

"A year has gone, a year has come.  We feel older but also younger.   Christmas and the shortest day, are well behind us and we have no option to but to go forward, though the blackened land says not yet.

For John Clare,  January was a month in which little could be done and essential tasks are scampered through in order to get back to the hearth.  The shepherd with his plodding dog, pace through the snow together, horses pass time away in leisure's hungry holiday, firewood is dragged in.

Thus doth the winter's dreary day, from morn to evening wear away.

It is time to go to the library for ten more books (videos?).  The fire blazes in our long, low house.  January is the scent of pickled walnuts, close rooms and paraffin.  January is wet feet and pink faces and 'shut that door!'.

However, January is a wonderfull opportunity to work off all those Christmas calories and be in the countryside by joining a Surrey Wildlife Trust working party!

In Chobham watch for .....

Many birds pair in this month; among them collared dove (start to physically defend territories again), rook (watch for their aerial courtings), great tit (the male will scold you if you stray into their intended territory), robin (male and female start to tolerate each other instead of fighting over their individual territories).

Dunnock are the most common singing bird in gardens (listen for a fast warble delivered from the top of a low tree);  coal tit in the woods.  Great tit (teacher, teacher, teacher ... rings through the woods) and song thrush (repeats phrases 2 or 3 times) also starts this month.

Snowdrop, gorse and hazell (green male catkins and tiny red female flowers) are the first to flower, and among the mammals, squirrel start mating.