Snow

 Monday, February 8

The wind howled, driving a blizzard of fine snow  horizontally, from east to west, across the garden. We found a bare two centimetres lying, spikes of lawn grass sticking through the blanket. During the morning, it snowed some more, thawed a little, then snowed again. Pam braved the conditions to top up our many bird feeders.

I postponed my visit to the eye clinic in Cromer. I didn't want to, but driving conditions in North Walsham are not good, the Covid mass vaccination centre in the Community Hall has cancelled work for the day. During easterly winds, the north coast always has more snow than us. My eye appontment has been re-arranged for Friday late morning.

Our back garden this afternoon

 

Two feeding stations and a table on the right hand side of the garden. A caged food source for ground feeders - protected from the Pheasants.

 

 

 

Another feeding station against the east hedge and a fourth at the very bottom near the dyke

 

Close up of the east Hawthorn hedge feeders

 

 

 

The Acacia/Wattle/Mimosa tree is showing the yellow flush of closed flower buds.

Latest  thoughts on the white-headed Long-tailed Tit I photographed, and posted in my last Blog entry. I sent the photo to Pete Colston for his opinion. His recommendation was to send it to either Steve Gantlett, or to Andy Stoddard. I had access to Steve's email address, I sent it to him. This is the, unsurprising, response. 

 Hi Anne,

'Acceptable' caudatus have to have pure white heads, a clear cut black nape and less pink on the shoulders, so this won't be one. Still a very nice looking bird though and even ones this white-headed are quite rare. It is not clear (to me) what these ones that don't quite make the grade are – intergrades, presumably wanderers from the continent, or occasional genetic variations amongst the British population.

Cheers,

Steve

 in a second mail.he suggested that I send the record to the county bird recorder.