Ice stopped play

Magpie

Yesterday I had an excuse: I'd overslept. Today I woke at dawn, looked out at the half inch of snow dumped on top of yesterday's icy slush and went back to bed. The weather responded by dumping another couple of inches on it tout suite. Twice in the past two winters I've found myself flat on my back, bruised and winded in the middle of nowhere and I'm disinclined to further trust my luck for a best of three. Particularly as I can't currently trust the signals from a knee that can stand on the firmest of terra firma and tell me it's a bit bouncy. 

Robins and woodpigeons sang as the bin men emptied the bins, the collared dove waited a couple of hours in the hopes it might warm up a bit. A trip out into the back garden to refill the bird feeders persuaded me that the amended, rather modest, plans for the day might be a tad ambitious. The robins, dunnocks and blackbirds made impatient noises while I loaded the feeders with suet pellets and sunflower hearts and scattered a few pellets on the clear snow by the rowan tree. The spadgers and starlings soon joined the party, a mixed tit flock of blue tits and long-tailed tits popped in for lunch as it suddenly got colder and the mist rolled in. The dunnocks decided that making baby dunnocks was a higher priority than getting fed. Oddly, no sign of the goldfinches or coal tits that have been in all week. Most winters I'd be expecting a chaffinch or two by now in this weather. I'll just have to wait and see if they turn up.

• Blackbird 3
• Blue tit 2
• Collared dove 1 
• Dunnock 3
• House sparrow 11
• Jackdaw 2 
• Lesser black-back 1 overhead 
• Long-tailed tit 5
• Magpie 2
• Robin 2
• Starling 4
• Woodpigeon 2

Lostock School

Over the road as the rooks, jackdaws and magpies disappeared into the mist lesser black-backs and common gulls drifted in and out of sight like ghosts. Within minutes I couldn't see the school at all, which was a bit disconcerting as the kids were out in force on their lunch break and howling into the void. The other thing I didn't see — or hear — were any black-headed gulls, very unusual in Winter that.