A few hours before dawn this morning it started snowing. There had been a little bit on Friday morning, which had not thawed, but this morning's was on a different scale. It is still snowing now, at 11.30am, and I popped out with my ruler to take some measurements. On our wooden garden table it is 15cms deep, and on the patio slabs, 10cms.
The Hawfinches seem to have disappeared, my last sighting being one which flew over our driveway on 3 December.
However, the bird feeding regime has been pretty successful, with 17 species in the garden yesterday including 10 Blackbirds, three Redwings, and three Chaffinches. A Wren hopped around the flower pots under the back window for a short while yesterday afternoon.
 |
| Redwing |
 |
| Chaffinch |
So this morning the garden looked like this:
I duly waded out and cleared patches of snow, put out more apples, sprinkled more seed, and retreated to see if anything new would turn up.
 |
| Redwing |
 |
| Song Thrush |
So, pretty much just the same birds. I could also see no evidence of a hard weather movement, but as the snow is largely confined to the Midlands and Wales, this isn't too surprising.
The neighbours have been busy though.
Update: One species which is surprisingly unusual in our garden is the Starling. But one found the fatballs at lunchtime.
 |
| Starling |
An hour later I went into the kitchen to find that the apple tree was full of Fieldfares. At least 15 were peering down and they were soon getting stuck in, fighting with the local Blackbirds for supremacy.
 |
| Fieldfare |
 |
| Fieldfare |
A fantastic spectacle.
Finally, as the light faded, a Pied Wagtail appeared on the front garden feeder. Another unusual bird for the garden.
 |
| Pied Wagtail |
The light was too poor for anything but a rather fuzzy record shot.
No comments:
Post a Comment