January is exactly when you should get yourself out for a bristly cold and bracing walk in the countryside: nature is waiting for you in its starkest and most unadorned beauty – don’t miss it!  

Trees take on twisted silhouettes, the mornings can be mist-shrouded or crackling with thick frost, and the skies full of drama. The shortest day has passed and the days are getting longer but January is typically cold and frosty, and if there’s any snow this year it’s most likely to be in the next few weeks. This is the hardest time of the year for most creatures, yet nature is already starting its preparations to burst back into life and if you look closely, you can see the first signs. Go out, take a camera or some binoculars with you, and see what there is to see. And think how wonderful it will be to come home refreshed, dry off, warm up and have a well-earned cuppa in front of the fire.

Walking in the woodlands around here, you might be forgiven for wondering where all the life has gone until the silence of the treetops is suddenly broken by the arrival of a chattering and energetic flock of small birds, rapidly followed by their just-as-sudden departure. By sticking together they improve their chances of survival. The bare trees mean it’s easier to spot herds of fallow deer. Many trees will be budding, though it takes some practice to identify them without their distinctive leaves. A few woodland flowers, such as cuckoo pint and lesser celandine, may put in an appearance. The first bulbs may be poking their shoots through the ground and soon the snowdrops will be appearing in white drifts – the first flowers of the year, and a valuable source of nectar for any bees that have woken too early. Brede High Wood around Powdermill reservoir is a great place for a walk (why not try the Brede Circular Walk from our October issue?).

Rookeries in tall bare trees are starting to get raucous and lively again as the ominous black birds gather to start preparing their nests. Songbirds, especially robins, tits and songthrushes, start their singing around this time, claiming their territories ready for the breeding season and looking for nesting sites. As the evening comes, birds head to their night roosts and sometimes flock into huge swirling shoals to wheel around the darkening skies.

This is a fantastic time to see birds in wetlands, on lakes and around our shoreline and estuaries. We’re really spoiled for choice here, with the wonderful Hastings Country Park, Pett Level and Rye Bay close at hand. There are many species of winter wildfowl to be seen, often in great numbers – lapwings, dunlin, grebes, coots, swans and various species of duck and geese. Fulmars will be returning to nest in the cliffs, which are already noisy with gulls of all kinds. Why not go for a walk along the shoreline and see what flotsam and jetsam have been washed up by the crashing waves of the winter storms?

Mammals such as bats, hedgehogs, badgers and squirrels will be deep in hibernation now, but if the weather’s mild they will take the opportunity to go looking for a snack before they go back to sleep. The dormice we found while out walking in October (see here) will be curled up in their nests of leaves and grass, their body temperature dropped and heart-rates slowed; typically they’ll sleep from October or November until April or May (they can spend up to three quarters of the year asleep!). Urban foxes will stay active, and may be joined by their country cousins as they rifle your bins for Christmas leftovers, emboldened by their hunger. This is the height of fox mating season and you may hear their short sharp barks or the shriek of the vixen; her cubs will be born in March.

If you can’t easily get out and about, then with a bit of bribery in the form of carefully positioned bird feeders and baths, you can enjoy some of our most attractive winter wildlife without leaving the comfort of your own home. For many birds there’s little food to be found; holly, rowan and hawthorn berries will mostly have been eaten, and insects become increasingly scarce (you might find a few butterflies, ladybirds and other bugs hibernating in your attic or shed). As times get harder woodland birds may appear alongside your usual garden species, especially in freezing weather – and that’s when you can really help them most by providing food and water (last January’s issue had an article on winter bird feeding – you can find it here). Migrant birds such as bramblings, waxwings, redwing and fieldfares have travelled here from northern Europe to avoid the coldest weather and, when their normal diet of invertebrates gets too hard to come by, they often flock in hedgerows and trees with any berries left and even come to town gardens, so might make a surprise appearance at your bird table.

Toward the end of the month the first golden tassels of catkins may be appearing on the branches of Hazel trees, and frogs and newts will be starting to move back to their ancestral ponds to get ready for spawning (if it’s mild, you might even find some frog-spawn). So although January can sometimes seem grim. lifeless and never-ending, winter is already giving way to the returning sun and if you learn to be aware of the natural signs all around you, you can be cheered that spring is just around the corner!