Snow

Lots of.....
Started on Wednesday with overnight flurries. wet and sleety. Thursday morning heavier and by today over a foot. Plus two significant power outs. Ken saw the snow buntings last Wednesday, exactly one week before the snow started falling.

GWP, gunnera and skates

Last week the top end of the village kindly sent us a greater spotted woodpecker which tried to destroy the nut feeder but finally managed to extract some peanuts and flew away, unfortunately it's not been back, so maybe the nuts were deemed inferior.

Over the weekend we wrapped up gunnera for the winter, lots of large crowns now safely swaddled in straw and tucked in with a fleece duvet, sleep well and we'll see you in the spring.
And just in time too - Last night the temperatures plummeted and all the rain, drizzle and heavy dew froze solid, this morning we really could have done with ice skates instead of walking boots.

Bird feeders

It's been wet and windy over the last few days, in the early hours of Wednesday I thought the windows were coming in such was the ferocity of the wind and hail. The silver lining to this cloud has been the huge influx of birds to the feeders (the bad news being the quantity of feed being consumed, but you can't have everything!).
Today we've been visited by large numbers of chaffinches and greenfinches plus the noisy squabbling goldfinches and the first siskins arrived at lunch time followed by two bramblings this afternoon. Also visiting today were blue tits, great tits, coal tits, house sparrows (no trees today) dunnocks, robins (two) and at least one nuthatch. Mrs Blackbird has been jumping up and down on the window sill demanding her buggy nibbles and a thrush was rummaging in the shrubbery.

Geese

A large skein of geese flew over this morning, probably 80-100. They seemed the wrong shape for pinkies, shorter tails and necks with fatter wings. So, courtesy of the RSBP bird guide and listening to the calls, I'm hazarding a guess at white fronted geese.