Roughly 3 to 4 inches of snow overnight & this morning. Overnight low of minus - 4.8 Celsius at 0810 hrs this morning and a daytime high of minus - 0.2 Celsius late afternoon its not what we, or the small birds here, are used to in recent years. Some seawatching brought a handful of Red-throated Divers, Shelduck & Common Scoter plus 6 Skylark south but with the weather conditions not on site early enough for a proper Cormorant count. The only refugees from the cold are single Fieldfare & Mipit plus the Lapwing from the past couple of days still with us. Along the riverbank 3 Turnstone, Purple Sand & Rock Pipit are not really affected by the conditions. Attempts to prevent water pipes freezing up have been successful so far but attempts to lure gulls from the View Point car park to some old sandwiches in the compound for ringing have failed.
