But today, as the song goes, what a difference a day makes! It started with a bit of drizzly rain and later turned to snow which started to settle on the decking, shed roof etc but not properly on the wet ground. However, after about half an hour the snow began to settle on the ground too and the snow continued for several hours. More snow down here, realtively near the coast, than I had seen for many years. Usually a fine dusting on the ground and thats it. Our daughter, as you can imagine along with all the other children, were very excited. I did my best to cover up the raspberry plants that were in full leaf and a few other plants that might be damaged by the snow fall and strong wind. The area around the pond and aquatic plants soon became covered in snow.
There is something about snow that brings out the inner child and it wasn't long before we were having a snowball fight with our neighbours. Then we all built the first substantial snowman for many a year. This is the most snow our daughter has everseen (she is now twelve). After another snowball fight our daughter went out with a friend (enjoying the snow while it lasts). I went for a walk to Easthill Park to see what was going on.
Most opf the grass was covered in snow but there were patches of green beneath some of the large thick evergreeen trees. Here blackbirds and other small birds such as dunnock and sparrow foraged for food. The blackbirds seemed to be doing quite well. (Blackbird below eating earthworm).
The main field was full of children, snow balling, making snowmen and generally having a great time. I walked to the North of the park and walked along the tree path walk at the top to see what birds were around.
The most numerous seemed to be the tits, both blue and great tit (latter below). They made their way through the branches in small feeding groups.
There was also a small flock of long-tailed tit, often hanging upside down trying to avoid the tops of the branches that were covered in thick snow.
By mid afternoon the snow was already beginning to melt and was almost completly gone the next morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment