A little bit of snow and a little bit of sunshine

The Safari has had family duties out of town two days this week so we've not been able to do as much safari-ing as we'd normally do. Snow fell hard in the morning at the start of the week and even stuck a little. We walk up the hill on Patch 1 adding Starling (P1 #22) to the Patch list and then Collared Doves (P1 #22) followed by a Sparrowhawk flying over the road on the way back (P1 #23), a productive few minutes! The chilly weather brought new garden visitors for the year in the form of a pair of Collared Doves (Garden #14, PYLC #73). A Wren was poking about in the tatty remnants of last year's flowers in the tubs too but wouldn't stay still enough for a pic.

By the afternoon the snow had stopped and the light improved a little and we were able to get another pic of the pair of Collared Doves now feeling loved-up in the milder conditions.

Prior to that we'd taken Monty for his first ever walk in proper snow - it made him a bit giddy even though there was only half an inch of the stuff lying on the ground before it started to melt.

The full wander of the Heron's Reach circuit had us finding very little apart from several Blackbirds and a couple of Robins and Magpies, best were six Song Thrushes, but everything else must have been well hunkered down avoiding the weather. A quick peek under the refugium that wasn't floating gave us two tiny Toadlets from last year's brood.

At the end of the week a morning out in pleasant sunshine but unpleasant wind at Marton Mere with CR gave us little in the way if photo opportunities. The Feeding Station gave us the most birds but the light was very harsh and challenging.

Robin

Blue Tit pretending to be a Treecreeper

Looking across the water it was evident that most of the birds were taking shelter in the reeds at the west end, not a lot was out on the water except for the tough-nut Coot. From the rees in the south west corner we heard a Water Rail call and Cetti's Warbler do a bit of subsong neither were going to show themselves any time soon.

There were very few gulls about so the chances of finding the Iceland Gull were slim to remote so we had to make do with pointing the camera at a passing Herring Gull instead.

At the wickedly cold embankment we spotted a couple of Stock Doves (107, MMLNR #50) on the end of the big barn, and four more on one of the smaller barns. They would have been PYLC #74 but we don't think the pic is quite good enough, we're sure to a better one at some stage in the year but this could be a banker - just in case.

What we didn't spot at the time and only noticed when we downloaded the pics off the camera was the male Kestrel sitting on the spar to their right.

The walk up through the scrub gave us nothing more, barely a bird in sight until a Greenfinch singing at the top of a path side bush went camera shy and did a bunk before we could lift said camera. And that was just about the end of the session until a Weasel carrying prey zoomed across the path in front of us, the first we've seen for far too long. Far too quick for a pic as it disappeared into the long grass on the far side of the track with its luckless victim.

Very quiet today so we hope that tomorrow will be better.

Where to next? We've got a couple of adventures lined up for the coming week - weather permitting.

In the meantime let us know who's enjoying the wintry conditions in your outback.

Oh no - more snow

The Safari was crook today and confined to barracks. We woke up to heavy snow still falling making a winter wonderland of the world outside the bedroom window.

We had a look at the videos Stealth-cam had recorded over night and were pleased to see this character sniffing out the dog biscuits Frank had kindly donated.

Great to see some 'big' wildlife in the garden, not so great to see the number of different cats that pass through...though they still haven't caught the mice yet.

In fitness and in health, come hell or high water Frank has to be taken out so we risked a quick dash to the North Blackpool Pond Trail where the snow lay deep and crisp and even.

Shame about the bunch of helium balloons, someone obviously thinks littering is fun...it isn't so please avoid letting go of those balloons, better still just avoid them full-stop; these'll take some reaching but those that land in the sea are all to often reached by marine animals first often with fatal consequences

A stunning Redwing (31) was a new bird for this recording area but other than a few Blackbirds and Goldfinches there wasn't much in evidence.
Frank had a whale of a time charging around with his nose down playing snow ploughs before settling into a sniff-a-thon following  the scent of who knows what.

 Then he got tired and hot and had to lie down and eat some snow.

We were somewhat shocked to see that so many the houses on the new estate had lost the snow from their roofs. How come they are so un-insulated? You'd have thought that being only about 10 years old good insulation would have been fitted as standard and if not the occupiers would have invested in their own, after all they are now paying a fortune to heat up outside.

The wheel tracks are from the Rangers who had not long been there before us and flushed two Teal from the ditch a few feet to the right of the gate we were leaning on to take this pic.

All too soon it was time to skedaddle back to Base Camp. On the feeders we'd noted no big cold weather influx just the usual, Blue and Great Tits, a Coal Tit (possibly two), a small number of Greenfinches and singles of Goldfinch and Chaffinch. On the ground a couple of Blackbirds squabbled over the meagre pickings to had that the snow hadn't buried.

Where to next? Should be back to work tomorrow and a backlog of e-mails no doubt but you never know Patch 2 might produce something.

In the meantime let us know what the snow is covering in your outback

A smattering of tthe wintery stuff

The Safari eagerly awaited the long expected snow. It almost didn't disappoint but only about 1 1/2 inches (4cm) fell

Same vantage point as the sunrise pic the other day - not quite so bright today!

A slippery dash across the prom to have a look at the sea which was pretty pointless as we could hardly see it. A small amount of snow had settled on the sand.

On the way back in we had two Lapwings go over the back of the office, they were only about 50 feet up but we could hardly see them.
The Gorse is almost ready to flower, but then it is that time of year.

Global Warming?

As we walked to the Land Rover to set off for home 3 Redwings (P2 #32) flew southwards overhead. Two seconds into our drive home we had an interesting icy slide so be careful on those slippery side-roads.

Where to next? Wifey is out having fun recording a CD tomorrow so we'll be out with snow-loving Frank trying to find some refugees from inland...what, if anything, will there be?
In the meantime let us know if any Ptarmigans have snuck into your outback.

Late update - Fox while out with Frank and would you believe it...a whole programme about the weather and the snow in particular - it's the UK, it's January therefore it's winter - it snows at this time of year - get over it! How come we can't cope anymore; our school(s) never closed - much as we'd have liked them too.

Could be fun and games in the Land Rover tomorrow, will take the tow rope with us - might earn a few extra bob.

The Safari took Frank out and spotted these rather colourful leaves had been swizzled round in a neat little pile by our  gatepost, nice and bright against the dull grey of the paving slabs in the street.

A brief conversation about Bramblings with CR resulted in being offered a lift to see if we could find and photograph the Snow Bunting that had been seen on the beach a few miles up the road yesterday.

Within just a few minutes we pulled in to the car park by the lake where a few gulls and Turnstones were already beginning to roost up in anticipation of the high tide.

Black Headed Gull in winter plumage

We weren't sure exactly which bit of the beach to look at so we headed south along the strandline where we came across numerous Edible Crab carapaces with their distinctive 'pie-crust' edge. This one was a monster as can be seen by the size 9 footprint for scale. We don't get these on the beach at Patch 2 so they were a pleasant surprise. A few native Oysters were also found mostly very old worn ones including one eaten away by a Boring Sponge (not at all boring but interestingly hole-drilling)

Snow was forecast and for once the forecasters weren't wrong. In the few breaks in the cloud we could see a fair smattering of snow on the higher tops of the Lake District. This is the outlying fell Black Combe, at just 1970feet (600m) high and in close proximity to the sea it doesn't often keep much snow, today it melted fairly quickly but was replaced by each passing shower.

After meeting up with MMcG we traipsed up the beach and down the beach with nothing to show for our traipsing but a handful of Sanderlings and a few more Turnstones, individuals of both species gave us 'false alarms' as did a flock of Linnets that flew up from the lower strandline. 

Eventually MMcG spotted the buntings only feet in front of us on a stretch of beached we'd been over twice before - where had they been hiding? So close were they at first they were too close for us to focus on with the long lens!Yes there were now two of them, doubling the count JS had yesterday!

Unfortunately they were very mobile and seemed to prefer the shaded areas which wasn't good for pics on such a dull day...not only that but they just never kept still. We fired a feew shots off of which these are easily the 'best' but we did get some stonking views in the bins...Snow Bunting in the bag (W-274; BI-188) - very happy!

With a few minutes to spare CR wanted to have a go at the four Goldeneyes on the lake, our and his first of this back end. They were a bit distant for our lens so we decided to have a go at the Turnstone roost, but were initially distracted by a young Herring Gull.

We snuck up on the Turnstones by doing this! You'll be thrilled to learn we managed to smear Turnstone and gull sh*t* all over our coat/trousers etc...

Where to next? We're in charge of Frank tomorrow so might well get out on safari somewhere as his leg is getting much better and he needs a bit of exercise and excitement.
In the meantime let us know what's got you crawling around on all fours in your outback.