The big freeze of 1962-1963. Broadcast in 2013. BBC TV.

Thankfully I'm too young to have been alive for that winter, though Limpy remembers it. For me, the Beast from the East a few years ago was quite bad enough.

I certainly remember it well, saw the sea frozen over in Margate, Kent and had Bro, wife & two babies staying when their pipes froze!

Yes, remember it well, the sea froze in Watchet harbour & the snow lasted months. I used to go out walking with my dad & I'd have to step in the holes made by his wellies, mine were too low (I was 7 yrs old). He opened the back door one morning & the snow all fell off the roof & covered him !! We had an outside toilet across the back yard so had to dig a way through to it. I saw the program a few years ago & it was fascinating. Although a lot of small birds died, within a few years their numbers were back up (if I remember it correctly).

Hazel C said:

Yes, remember it well, the sea froze in Watchet harbour & the snow lasted months. I used to go out walking with my dad & I'd have to step in the holes made by his wellies, mine were too low (I was 7 yrs old). He opened the back door one morning & the snow all fell off the roof & covered him !! We had an outside toilet across the back yard so had to dig a way through to it. I saw the program a few years ago & it was fascinating. Although a lot of small birds died, within a few years their numbers were back up (if I remember it correctly).

That is correct! But at the end of that programme in 2013, Chris Packham said that if another such winter occurred in a similar very as the long 1962-1963 winter! Garden Birds would have a better chance of surviving such a winter as the big freeze! As a lot more peopke have bird feeders than what was the case in 1962-1963. I was the only person that put bird food out for the wild gardeni birds in my street in 1962-1963. The wild birds that would suffer the most as mentioned by Chris Packham would be on farmland as the land that is farmed now has completely changed over the last 50+ years!

I thought f the younger members of this forum might like to see this thread about the 1962-1963 winter in this one off winterwatch special broadcast in 2013 with Chris Packham. I was 10 years old during that winter./

I've watched that programme before (twice, I think). I'm a little too young to remember it, although I was alive at the time. I've heard the stories from my (now, sadly, departed) relatives. Some of whom were in the business of things like trains and buses (which feature in the programme IIRC)

There are no weather warnings from the Met Office for the next seven days as far as I can see.

Welcome back tuwit ! I thought you would reply! I’m not surprised.

I am obviously not replying to one specific person, despite what they might imagine. Shifts in the populations of birds are driven by many thngs. And understanding of what birds can eat. My grandparents put out bacon rinds. Was that helpful?

But you like to post in my  thread’s don’t  you! I must be popular!