Tuesday 15 January 2013

15/01: WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

24 Little Hours ... as sung by Aretha Franklin and  many others I guess, but its Aretha's version I remember best ...

Sunday's weather cold and wet

Yesterday we woke to this scene  - not sure how well this will fit the page, but here goes.  My back garden following overnight snowfall


and lots of bird activity


I know this is a bit out of focus but David loves this picture - made him laugh.  Poor little chaffinch with a snowy beak


Blackcap chipping his way into the frozen fatballs.  In very icy weather I've been known to warm the fatballs in the microwave for the birds - how daft is that??


I put out some trays with seeds for the ground feeders ... but guess who found them first?!!


and we had a visit from a bird I couldn't identify so I emailed Mike, a wildlife artist and 'bird expert' who has helped me before with bird identification.     Mike Woodcock - Scolopax Chronicles    I'd rather hoped it was an unusual/rare visitor but turned out to be a Dunnock which is quite a common garden bird.  However, normally they are ground feeders and its unusual to see them on feeders - hence I had a different view of the bird and saw its speckles and pink legs where normally I just see plain brown backs/tops as it rootles round the grass and leaves.



We left the snow of Whitstable to drive to Bexley (South East London) for a series of family visits and errands and within 5 miles of leaving home the countryside was snowless.      It was very localised obviously.
When we returned home yesterday evening we'd had rain here and most of the snow had gone.

Today we have bright sunshine again although its very cold ...

Tomorrow we will be back at our house on Fuerteventura.  The forecast is a bit mixed with mostly cloudy skies it seems, rather than bright sunshine.  BUT it will be about 25 degrees warmer there than it is in Whitstable so looking forward to wearing summer clothes for a while.



7 comments:

  1. love all the bird photos :D snow here, but none in dundee which is 15 minutes away.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My friend in the Lake District was posting snow pix too, and another friend in the Manchester area. So you weren't the only ones to get it. We have no snow left here, normally we have heaps of the stuff.

    Enjoying the bird - and squirrel - pix.

    Useful guy to know is Mike!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I always love it when you post photos of your local wildlife. Glad the snow is gone although I'm not sure if you like it or not. Oh, well, there won't be any in Fuerte & I'm sure you'll enjoy the warmer weather!
    Write when you can and send photos! lol

    ReplyDelete
  4. These birds are so beautiful, Sue...I love the chaffinch with the snowy beak!! You got a perfect shot of him!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lovely pics, our turn tonight for the snow. A bit sad that last year we had a grey squirrel, up til then we had a red. Never managed to get a pic of him. Do enjoy the warmth. Very envious.

    ReplyDelete
  6. We had a 3 hour delay at Stansted Airport - not due to snow/ice but a mechanical problem which led to us having to switch planes. But, we're here now and its WARM!! Just looking at the BBC website and looking at all the snowy pictures back in England. I think the heaviest snow isn't due in Whitstable till Sunday according to the BEEB.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Amazing, we got snow for the second time this winter. The last lost completely disappeared, and its supposed to snow in Canada.

    Have a nice relaxing, warm, time in Fuerteventura. Lucky thing you.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting my Blog. Let me know what you think :-)

I have disabled the Captcha requirement at the request of followers who find it irritating when posting comments. However to stop the subsequent flood of spam posts I can no longer accept comments from Anonymous sources.
Apologies if this is a problem
Thank you
Sue
x