If your dog is used to rising at 6am in summer, they are bound to be ready to go around the same time in the winter months. 

My Lakeland Terrier Ted has become accustomed to a later start, but he will bark to inform me when it’s time to get out into the lanes and woodlands of Lancashire.

Once out, in the necessary layer of clothing, it becomes a voyage of discovery, where you need to use all of your senses for a wild experience.

Tawny owls will hoot at each other, and it won’t be long before woodpeckers are knocking away at trees.

If there is a rustle in the hedgerow, it could be a roe deer or a fox, I have spotted both over the Christmas period. And squirrels have bolted across the road and up the trunk of a tree, which has confused Ted.

As the dark slides towards daylight, the dog has caught sight of something on the road ahead and it’s usually a blackbird or an angry robin ready to defend its territory.

In the recent days the clear skies have meant lovely artistic touches as the moon and stars – and planets – are reflected on the old mill lodge at the bottom of the road.

And then as the sun rises, adding colour to the sky, the robins and blackbirds will sing, in preparation for the spring dawn chorus and all its glory.

As I get into our garden one of those blackbirds is waiting for me, demanding raisins on the bird table before I get to Ted and my own breakfasts.

I will be out at 7am on New Year’s Day to watch the first sunrise of 2026, getting ready for another year working with colleagues who are helping to make these wild experiences part of every day in the North West of England.