The BIG freeze

Late February / early March has been insanely cold as the 'Beast from the East', a savage Siberian weather front, moved in, producing big bouts of snow and sub zero temperatures for several days.

This harsh, unforgiving weather wreaked havoc, with birds moving around, desperately looking for food.

Friday (02/03) & Saturday (03/03) were particularly bad and as such I was restricted to staying at home. I made sure though I got plenty of apples and seed out in the garden to keep the local bird population all stocked up and spent a lot of time keeping an eye on any visitors. I, like many others was treated to the presence of several Fieldfares coming into urban areas for food. One in particular spent the whole of Saturday in and around the garden, ferociously guarding the supply of apples!



I just about managed to get my camera out through the conservatory window to get some really nice shots as he sat just some 15 feet away. Magical!

The next day, the roads improved enough to allow me to venture out to the Grimsbury Res patch in Banbury, to look for some displaced birds. 

There was certainly a few things of interest, with no less than three year ticks, consisting of 3 Dunlin along the eastern shore, a pair of Gadwall and a Snipe feeding in a small dyke by the water treatment works. Other notables, included the Willow Tit in the wood, a pair of Wigeon and 4 Coot (believe it or not, a very high count for Grimbo!).

Before I left, a leucistic Cormorant headed over and there was also the sad sight of a Lapwing corpse along the Eastern shore, a stark reminder of the impact the weather was having to our bird life.