19th March

This winter's had a pretty brutal sting in the tail, with another substantial overnight snowfall making it very hard going for both the cold weather refugees and what newly arrived migrants were about; the only redeeming feature was that, like yesterday, the snow was largely gone by late afternoon. Golden Plovers and Meadow Pipits again made up the bulk of the numbers, with 600 or so of the former and in excess of 1000 of the latter spread about the island as a whole. Amongst the thinnish spread of back-ups the most noteworthy were 3 Firecrests, 2 Short-eared Owls  and singles of Teal, Dunlin, Redshank, Jack Snipe, Black Redstart, Blackcap and Bullfinch at the Bill.

Dawn brought with it the unusual sight of the Obs garden looking like a winter wonderland and the wider Bill area blanketed in a decent enough dollop of the white stuff © Martin Cade...

...by early afternoon though the snow was rapidly disappearing © Martin King:

Despite looking as though they were finding plenty of food the Golden Plovers were getting increasing confiding today...

...Jack Snipe was a fairly expected cold weather arrival...

...whilst sights like this Dunlin probing around on the middle of the Bill Common were also to be expected.

It was hard not to feel sorry for the Firecrests that were reduced to scratching around on the ground where at least they did seem to be getting some reward © Martin Cade: