Winter Wanderings
2 Dec 2015
Wildlife watching and Christmas carols are taking centre stage at Haddo this month...
We've really been hit with some cold weather over the past couple of weeks, while a few days have been a bit grey and depressing we've also had a couple of gorgeous, crisp blue-sky mornings and the park has been looking absolutely lovely, especially with a light covering of snow.
Goldcrest, Treecreeper and Long-tailed Tits are flitting around in the Craigie Wood, Redwing are still dropping into the field by the car park and there seems to be a Buzzard perched somewhere on the main drive every morning. Large parts of the lake have frozen over so the ducks are congregating in big flocks up by the dam or down at the Scots Mile bridge. One of our regular visitors even managed to see a Kingfisher earlier in the week- presumably making the most of the running water in the burn now much of the standing water in the lake has frozen over.
The Red Squirrels are cleaning out the feeding boxes almost as soon as we fill them (we are filling them up regularly I promise!), and as always you can leave food donations for them in the visitor centre or just top up the boxes if you're passing! We've got some new batteries in the motion-sensitive camera so hopefully we'll have some new squirrel videos to share with you in the next few days.
If you want to learn a bit more about Haddo's winter wildlife then come along on our Winter Wildlife Wander on Sunday morning- leaving the visitor centre at 10am. The walk costs £5 per person (under 12s free) and is perfect for absolute beginners or slightly more experienced wildlife watchers. Drop us an email or call 01651 851041 if you'd like to join us.
Christmas Spirit
Haddo's getting seriously festive this month, with no less than six carol services in the week's leading up to Christmas. This Sunday the NTS Members Group will be holding their carol service in the chapel, and then on Friday 11th it's the turn of Haddo Voices children's choir. You can get all the details of both of these concerts on our events page.
HHCOS 70th Anniversary
The special highlight this year will be the Haddo House Choral and Operatic Society concerts on Sunday 13th and Saturday 19th December, with performances at 2pm and 4pm each day.
This year is the 70th anniversary of HHCOS performing at Haddo, and there's going to be a special programme featuring carols that were sung in that very first concert, as well as the traditional favourites. There's even one member of the choir who performed in the very first carol service in 1945 and will be singing a solo again this year.
Tickets are £16 including refreshments and a souvenir programme and are available from hhcos.org.uk