It was a lovely chilly minus three this morning on the thermometer as I waited for the car windows to defrost. I know many people don't like the cold but it really is just what the countryside needed to help balance itself out.
When I arrived on the reserve I was greeted with a good hard ground frost, the first time in ages that the cold has frozen the surface of the soil, it will certainly do our little Horseshoe meadow the world of good by stopping the grass growth and allowing the wild flower plants space to emerge in spring.
Frost on the meadow
I maybe should have known a bit of cold was on its way when I happened to stumble across one of my favourite winter birds on Wednesday when I was visiting one of our sites elsewhere along the Humber, its certainly always nice to find your own waxwing! It always seems that they arrive here along the Humber just when the haw berries are just running out and the rose hips have just belted (softened).
Waxwing - not in a supermarket car park!
The lagoons on the reserve had also for the first time this winter got a thin layer of ice across although there were a few bits of open water that held a few hardy wildfowl including teal, wigeon, shelduck, and shoveler while the odd snipe were finding some unfrozen feeding areas between ice and bank.
Wildfowl in the ice this morning
But many of the waders and duck have now gone to find refuge on the Humber and in the local fields where they are roosting or finding a little bit of food. I reckon there were about 3000 lapwing yesterday with this sight of a few feeding in a field near to Adlingfleet nearby.
Dots and sheep in a local field - you may have to enlarge this to see it, a bit more of this mixed farming is really what the local farmland would benefit from!
As you can see from this zoomed in picture they were Lapwings
There was certainly quite a bit of pink-footed goose activity during the morning as sizable flocks were pushed back and forth from their preferred feeding areas out in the arable fields. The greylags just near to Whitgift seemed more settled, certainly worth a look through just in case a few white-fronts turn up.
A big gaggle of pinkfeet
In terms of birds of prey there are still plenty of marsh harriers about and with this cold the roost may grow over the next week or so, there is also regular merlin, sparrowhawk and plenty of buzzards about with too birds having a good scrap this morning.
Although it may be cold there was strangely this morning the odd dunnock and wren singing while the tree sparrows were inspecting the newly cleaned out nest boxes ready for the approaching breeding season! Only the odd fieldfare around at the moment as they have now gobbled up the majority of the berries but there is a nice mix of smaller birds around site including 90 skylark in the oil seed rape field next to the path up to Ousefleet, bullfinch in the willows, greenfinch and goldfinch around the feeders, cettis warblers and reed buntings in the reedbed scrub and still a few stonechat especially around Ousefleet. Its seems the cold too hasn't chilled the stock doves ardor as four were at the nest box at Ousefleet this morning.
The angel of the Humber - stonechat
A curious tree sparrow
And a pair - the female seems quite unimpressed!
With this cold there is the possibility that a few bearded tits may start to emerge around the edges of the lagoons, listen and look for them feeding on the reed seed heads around Townend and Marshland lagoon. Today it seemed too that the water pipits were a little more active flying about with a few meadow pipits that may have been fleeing the snow on the hills.
Mammal wise there were plenty of roe deer around and along the feeder ditch a fine stoat looking for its dinner.
The koniks always seem to enjoy the cold weather
I'll finish with a lovely sunrise from yesterday, the reeds always look nice when its dry and cold
If you visit wrap up nice and warm!