Snow sheep

It’s the first week of Spring and Mother Nature is having a bit of a quarrel with Winter. In the Welsh hills in Powys, over 50cm of snow has fallen and high winds have felled trees, cut down power lines and created spectacular snow drifts. In fact, we’ve had so much of the white stuff that even the locals are commenting about how they’ve never seen it like this at the end of March. And of course it’s lambing season, one of the busiest times in the calender year for the Welsh sheep farmer; and the snow is presenting an additional layer of worry.

I’d taken some pictures of Welsh Mountain sheep a few years ago when I was starting out with my photography; in fact I was quite pleased with them at the time. Looking back however, I should have got my exposures right, and there wasn’t quite enough snow, and……….. I could go on about what wasn’t quite right. So I set myself a task that come the next snow fall, I’d retake the shots. Well since then, we’ve had many white winters here in the hills, but one thing was always missing, the sheep. And of course the sheep would appear and you’ve guessed, it didn’t snow.

So with snow falling rapidly, I made the best use of the white weather this weekend to photograph some of the locals, the Welsh Mountain sheep.

When the wind was blowing the snow horizontally, the mothers huddled closer to their lambs in an effort to stay warm. And I huddled closer to the camera!

As I walked back home to a roaring fire and casserole, I wondered how these animals, the lambs especially, managed to survive in sub freezing temperatures and drifting snow. And my conclusion? The Welsh Mountain sheep are hardy critters, but more importantly they have the farmers looking after their welfare, dedicating their time in challenging conditions to check up on and feed their livestock. Big respect to the farmers.

Sheep probably aren’t everyone’s photographic cup of tea, but after watching them with their lambs over the course of 2 days, I became quite fond of them. And besides, I’m much happier with my shots this time too.