What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen

Winter sunset

The hard frosts continue but, thankfully, the snows seem to be passing by our corner of the country.
The bird feeders are still well patronised by the usual suspects and a few itinerants.
The great spotted woodpecker has appeared on a few occasions, and a female blackcap has been feasting on the peanuts for a few days. The male of the species was seen last winter but not so far this year. (Blog 15/03/2010)
It is a reflection of the previously androcentric nature of society that the species is named after the male, the female having an equally obvious brown cap.

Blackcap-browncap

The cult sci-fi television series, “Red Dwarf”, had an episode when the hapless crew entered a parallel universe where the roles were reversed and they met their female equivalents, all with what we would regard as masculine habits and attitudes. Is there another universe with browncaps instead of blackcaps: brown flycatchers instead of pied flycatchers; browny-grey grouse instead of black; olive-brown finches instead of green.?

A snipe spent a day fossicking about under the hawthorn hedge where the ground remained unfrozen, probing the leaf litter with its beak. I presume it was a migrant resting after flying in over the coast. The next day it was gone.
NCC has had great fun on the frozen fields, flushing up coveys of resident partridge and a greater number of snipe than you would expect. They must be coming in over the North Sea. Her other sport is to chase the local roe deer who treat her fairly contemptuously, sprinting off to a safe distance then turning to view her with disdain.




NCC's quarry leaving her standing


They have been making their way down to the shoreline where they must browse amongst the kelp thrown up by the tides and, probably, finding shelter beneath the cliffs from the worst of the snowstorms.


Redshank on the kelp

The shelter of the shore

If the freeze lasts long enough, the Grand Match, the highlight of any curling season, might take place. It hasn’t been played since 1979 as seven inches of ice are needed to support the weight of up to two thousand curlers and their stones on a frozen loch.

It's an ill wind and all that.

Fingers crossed that some good comes of "Janwar's cauld blast"