12z today - A cold front is undergoing frontolysis over southern England, bringing plenty of cloud. Conditions at 12PM on Sunday: Thickness, 546dam, temperature 9C(dewpoint 8C). Wind from the west, 7 MPH. Today's high, 10C, last night's low 5C. (source: MetO, the 12z GFS and NOAA).

It may be winter but you'd not have guessed it today. The temperature was 6C as I left in the darkness this morning and the day dawned to reveal a blanket of grey aloft - stratocumulus.

The temperature rose slowly as I headed along the M25 and by the time I arrived at Beenham it had reached the balmy heights of 8C. I was half expecting to find everything locked up, as it was the Trust's Christmas meal yesterday evening and I doubted the wolves would have been put to bed, but the gate was unlocked. I drove down to the secondary carpark with the European wolves loping alongside in their enclosure - they seem to like chasing my car for some reason!

It turned out that John (one of the seniors) had beaten me to the Trust, but before I found that out I said "hi" to the European wolves. They came over to me and I decided to record them for once - the clip's below. As usual they sniffed me to get my scent, then to my delight they started howling - and before anyone says anything I'm sure I don't smell that bad!

That set Duma and Dakota off and the two groups of wolves seemed to have a howling contest - and the Euros threw in a rally or two for good measure.

Here's the result, an absolute cacaphony of wolf sounds, and boy was it loud! Too loud for my Psion really, which is why there's some distortion... The wolves also did something slightly unusual in that they barked a couple of times. Wolves in the wild usually bark only as a warning to others, so it's not something you hear that often. The barks can be heard at 1:16 into the clip, but it's lost something in the conversion to an MP3. Wolf barks are quite soft and certainly not the loud rumbly things you'd expect from an animal that size!

http://www.medvale.net/wolves/04-12-05/dec.mp3

On the left, the Euros; on the right, Duma and Dakota. And in the air - a heck of a lot of noise! The notice on the gate is a "health and safety" warning not to go beyond it without permission and my Psion's visible on the gravel to the left.

Shortly after that I went over to say hello to Duma and Dakota, as apart from John and Paula, his wife, the Trust was empty. Dakota came over as soon as she saw me approach the enclosure mesh and promptly pressed up against it. The wolves know that if they do that there's a good chance they'll get stroked and so it was this time. It gave me an excellent oppertunity to see just how thick that winter coat of theirs is - pretty thick, as it turns out.
After a couple of minutes of that Duma decided she'd had enough and promptly barged her sister out of the way, allowing me to give her a good scratch as well.

After that it was back to the Obs Room where the Euros were still howling away, this time up on their mound:

Alba, Latea and Lunca.
As an aside, I've heard many a time that the best way to tell the two Euro females apart is that one is brown and the other grey - and surprisingly enough I've finally been able to spot it. Have a look at the chest colour of the wolves to see what I mean!

As there wasn't any cleaning to be done I headed off to pay my regards to Kodiak and Kenai, who were both looking magnificent. Kenai as ever eluded my attempts to photograph her, but Kodiak stopped for a while:

Kodiak's getting a little podgy in his old age, but he can still move at a good speed if he feels like it!

With a few breaks appearing in the clouds it was time to head off to the woods with D&D, this time with a group of Cambridge alumni. The woods are still absolutely soaking despite the recent lack of rain and the wolves, as usual, decided that ploughing through muddy puddles was great fun.

Here's a photo of Duma in amongst the bracken:

Now it's winter there are subtle changes in the wolves' behaviour. Breeding season is just around the corner and hormones are rising. In the case of the Euros, Alba was jumping on Lunca and Latea earlier in a show of dominance and even the placid Duma and Dakota have had a few growls at each other. After last week's brief reversal in roles it's all back to normal as this photo of Dakota "sucking up" to Duma shows:

All too soon it was time to head back to the Trust where the usual routine of serving refreshments and selling merchandise took place. As the guests were leaving there was another walk, this time for us non-handlers. This time I had the pleasure of being led around by Dakota and she can exert quite a pull (especially when the other wolves are involved!) She was as pleasant as ever and I'm still learning things about handling; I doubt there'll ever be a time when I stop learning!

By now the sun had set and dusk was setting in under partially cloudy skies - my cue to head for home. The journey back was pretty uneventful, with temperatures hovering around 10C for much of it - a mild day by my reckoning.

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