Weather- January 2010

[mark smyth]

Birds are very good at not looking sick when they are. By the time we see them sick they are on the way out.

It's snowing here again

[Sinchets]

I believe in survival of the fittest. As I look from the window a great tit is flying around the eaves looking for spiders and sleeping insects. If he survives I know he will pass on this ability to his offspring.

[Maggi Young]

I believe in survival of the fittest.

So do I, but I also believe a quiet, peaceful death is good thing if a quick one cannot be assured. 

[ranunculus]

I believe in survival of the fittest. As I look from the window a great tit is flying around the eaves looking for spiders and sleeping insects. If he survives I know he will pass on this ability to his offspring.

A canny great tit would be teaching his offspring about the web!   

[David Nicholson]

A "smattering" of snow this morning, our first snow of the winter, but already vanishing from roads. Not, I hasten to add, that it has been banana belt weather here, we have had more frost this year then ever I can remember since we moved down here 22 years ago.

[Sinchets]

I'd always heard that hypothermia was a quiet, peaceful way to die.
Look at it this way at least birds don't have teeth to chatter  
We were -9C overnight with strong winds that seem to have 'freeze dried' the icy slush from the path. Our resident spuggies are still with us, flying off every morning to who knows where and returning every evening to roost in the barn. Various woodpeckers make merry with the anthills in the garden, digging through to the deeper layers where the ants are hiding before leaving the ants to repair the damage.

[ranunculus]

You can willingly have some of ours David.  It has been ever present for weeks now and it is still falling (thankfully not windy enough for drifts to form at the moment) - probably seven or eight inches on the greenhouse roof after being cleared on Sunday.

[ranunculus]

I'd always heard that hypothermia was a quiet, peaceful way to die.
Look at it this way at least birds don't have teeth to chatter  
We were -9C overnight with strong winds that seem to have 'freeze dried' the icy slush from the path. Our resident spuggies are still with us, flying off every morning to who knows where and returning every evening to roost in the barn.

I wonder how many members are typing 'spuggies' into Google at this moment?   

[Gwenblack]

Maggi      Chihuahua kebabs?   You've got to be kidding.   No self respecting chihuahua would be seen dead out in 12-14" of frozen snow except in a centrally heated sedan chair. They do make minor forays up the hard won pathways that the snow shovel makes to keep us in touch with the outside world,  but otherwise have to be hand carried and placed with care under deep hedges where a little vegetation remains free  of drifts so that they can   " Go on the grass"   Still snowing and freezing here but we hear that the Central Heating Fuel delivery tanker will make a bold effort to reach us this afternoon. He was ordered a week before Christmas but the priority was to reach folk whose tanks were already empty.   We've been running on empty for three days now!

[Michael J Campbell]

Not as much as one snowflake here yet and we are starting into the fourth week of the freeze, -5°C or -6°C every night rising to -2°c by day with wall to wall sunshine.

[Maggi Young]

I'd always heard that hypothermia was a quiet, peaceful way to die.

Very likely, but being grabbed by a cat as you go is not..... and it would be worse for Angie, who would be sitting fretting about the bird.

I wonder how many members are typing 'spuggies' into Google at this moment? 

They could also add "spurrdies" and  "speugs" 

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Except for Bulgaria, I guess Europe is heading for a new Ice Age... 

[mark smyth]

No alternative to spurry for us other than the name

[johnw]

That monster storm as they called it is still sitting over the Maritime Provinces and seems to be lodged here.  We got about 15cm of snow followed by alot of rain on Jan 2, surprisingly an hour or so of minor wind and now nothing but cloud cover. The one good thing that can be said about it is that is holding the cold weather over the rest of the continent at bay.

johnw  - +2c at 7:30 am  

[Hristo]

Luc, there was a programme on the Discovery Channel that might agree with you, It was all about the shutting down of the North Atlantic Drift and how coastal N.Europe and the UK in particular would end up with climates rather more like Northern Continental Europe. A map was shown of Europe, indeed the whole of the northern hemisphere, for the changes in average annual temperatures, all was blue showing a cooling trend, except....yup you guessed it, Bulgaria! Bulgaria was the only country in N.Europe that was orange. Not sure how all that warm air will stay out of Romania, Greece, Macedonia, sorry The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, maybe all those plants that grow around Bulgraia but not in it have something to do with it, a grand vegetative conspiracy if you will! Padded cell is calling.........