January is a long and cold month with bleak looking landscapes of bare trees, mud and grey foggy fields. Foliage, such as grass seems grey with the soggy dead blackened old rubbish of whatever wind blew. Very dead leaves that fell off trees long ago are built up and often in ditches, providing warm natural blankets to small hibernating creatures living underground or in hollows.
The sky is often grey and cloudy overcast that feels heavy and threatens thunderous blizzards and showers. Puffy white clouds are pregnant of snow. Birds are active including swans, geese, redwings, ducks, waxwings, snow bunting, robins and blackbirds, plus so many more. Squirrels are mostly at play in winter, as it's their mating season. Foxes are also active mostly at night. We also will find deer, badgers, mice, voles, otters, seals, stoats and weasels. Up in woodlands and forests in the north and highlands are wildcats out and about, who are usually solitary animals but in winter they become social. In some areas near lodges and wildlife sanctuaries, such as Reading and in Shropshire, do expect to hear wolves howling. In the Forest of Dean, wild boars gather.
Jupiter will be the biggest and brightest on the 10th January with opposition, which means Earth will be directly between Jupiter and the Sun. We'll also expect to see the Winter Triangle, the bright stars in the corners will be Sirius in Canis Major, Betelgeuse in Orion and Procyon in Canis Minor. There will be a visible bunch of stars called the Beehive Cluster in January.
Storm Valkyrie
