In The Belly of the Beast From the East - Snow! - 27/2 - 4/3/2018

View of my street - first snows on Tuesday

 

All those predictions of a harsh snow storm hitting the UK were correct with several inches falling over Monday night to produce a pristine winter wonderland on Tuesday. Tuesday was sunny and the landscape beautiful, but further storms arrived over Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday everything looked shabby and dirty and everyone was bored with the weather.

 

 

I had to work every day of the storm so far, and at times it was so busy that it reminded me of Christmas, especially the Saturday when a lull in the weather persuaded everyone to go out and stock up on provisions - typical panic buying. Walking home in the dark, the country lane I followed whilst usually pitch black in normal weather was lit up by the glowing snow creating an eerie effect.

Wildlife wise this heavy weather is like setting off an atom bomb - as destructive a force as possible. This storm had come just at the wrong time - when Spring is beginning, when life begins anew after the long cold winter. Whilst a lot of January and February felt like Spring, Spring feels like winter. When birds should be thinking of romance instead they are tasked with their very survival itself. A lot of the small birds that are resident or near resident - the STONECHATS, the CETTI'S WARBLERS, the DARTFORD WARBLERS - are all affected and many will not survive. I predict that this breeding season will be the worst for at least ten years with so few adult birds surviving into the breeding season. How I hope I am wrong.

 

 

Bird wise a lone FIELDFARE has turned up in the garden, miserable, exhausted and all alone. Lots of them have turned up in gardens across the country, all singularly or in small numbers, maybe the warmer climate in the towns harbour more food.

 

 



A FIELDFARE in my garden - shot through a window, snow and a tree - that's why it looks so soft focused

 

 

In my garden, the vegetable patch I had sown in the Autumn, surviving hard frosts and the odd snow flurry, was covered in snow. On Friday I cleared away the snow that had covered it to find the plants still alive, though severely wilting under the cold snow. Life has a way of clinging on.
I visited the Local Patch but couldn't get far - knee high snow, and a small blizzard sent me back. Nothing much was present except a small flock of 15 GOLDFINCHES.
By Sunday the snow had all thawed to be replaced by torrential rain. Rain, now there's something us Brits are used to dealing with. Except when it brings on floods, then we're buggered.