Winter bites back

The Safari was looking out of the kitchen window last night and spotted three big snowflakes followed a few minutes later by a smaller fourth! Brrrrrr!!!

Nothing really unusual in that despite it being April; many’s a time we’ve seen Swallows and Sand Martins at the nature reserve huddled together on the wires in bitterly cold April snow flurries.

Frank only went a few yards up the hill on Patch 1 and for once we didn’t blame him, the wind was biting cold. We looked out of the bedroom window but didn’t see the Peregrine on the tower, with the wind direction it would have been in view if it had been there.

It seemed somewhat incongruous to see Sandwich Terns, of which there were six, cruising back and forth against the backdrop of the Lakeland fells laden with snow being a species normally associated with hot summer days. A single Kittiwake wandered through the scope’s field of view and that was about the size of it for the morning safari.

Lunchtime gave us even less, a few gulls on the beach and nothing out at sea except cold grey waves topped by white horses. Significant amounts of spray were being blown backwards off the tops of the incoming waves, quite spectacularly in the river mouth to the south.

An ominous cloud formation appeared mid afternoon, at first it looked like a funnel cloud when we first noticed it but we soon realised it wasn't - nothing came of it in the end, didn't even rain...as you can see it did go quite dark.

Where to next? Somewhere a bit warmer, we'd got used to that hot heat last week!

In the meantime let us know how deep the snow is in your outback.
Late update from a previous post
Remember this pic?

Just found out here that it isn't a sedge it's Field Wood-rush, aka Good Friday Grass, Luzula campestris - used to enjoy a bit of a womble over Mousehold Heath in my dim n distant Uni days