It's mainly about the weather!

Overnight freezing snow was just beginning to thaw when the heavy morning snow began. It turned to rain late morning and the remaining snow soon disappeared. The SW wind became very strong in the afternoon with some heavy squalls.

This is a nice record shot of Jeff Gorse's Treecreeper in St Peter's church
grounds on Friday. Treecreeper are not overly common here.

Imperial Rd today (MD)

I checked for the Ibis early on before the heavy morning snow began. No Ibis but there were 50 Curlew feeding where it had been yesterday. It was beginning to snow harder now, you can tell how dry it was as the snow "flakes" click when they strike the camera.

A second check after lunch saw at least 70 Curlew and more, presumably displaced from further inland, were arriving all the time. 

Middleton Nature Reserve (MD)

Just the main pond checked, to see if any of the resting gulls were ringed. None were.

Black-Headed gulls resting on the ice

Mute pair plus 7 immature 

Coot 5

Coot

Moorhen 4

Mallard 27

Mallard

Gadwall 6

Redshank, male Gadwall and Mallard

South shore (MD)

It was 2 hours before high water but the strong SW wind had already blown the tide in and the waves had emptied Red Nab.

The sea was wild, but this was the first serious wind for ages and it had only been blowing 
a couple of hours. Too soon to push any birds of interest in.

This is the Pilot boat, just leaving the protection of the harbour.

This Grey Wagtail was on one of the harbour platforms yesterday (I forgot to post it)

And that's about it!

The only other place I checked was just of the recording area to see if the Ibis was behind Middleton Parish Hall. The extra ponies had gone but there was snow on the ground and the ground water was frozen. Not surprisingly, no sign of the Ibis.

This is the area where the Ibis has been feeding, and this is before the heavy snow!
Heavy frost forecast overnight, have we seen the last of the Ibis? Hopefully not. (Malcolm)