Happy New Year from a super stormy Ramsey. We are currently in the grips of a particularly rough spell of weather, with winds of over 70mph forecast for the Pembrokeshire coast this weekend. We have been out today stowing away anything that is not concreted to the floor, securing doors and gates and quite literally, ‘battening down the hatches’.
Thus far the winter has been kind to us, with a prolonged high pressure system over the Christmas and New Year period giving us some of the most glorious winter days. As for much of the UK, daytime temperatures barely rose above zero, with a nighttime low of minus 3.5 degrees, the coldest we have experienced during our four winters on the island. The sea at nearby Broad Haven actually froze, with mini icebergs washing up along the sandy beach.
The advantages of the cold weather have been the sunshine and a considerable influx of birds. The island and it’s human inhabitants have been invigorated by the calls of golden plover, lapwing and curlew and it has been almost impossible to take a walk without flushing a snipe, Jack snipe or woodcock from the fallen bracken and marshy places. Winter thrushes have also made a welcome return this year. After only a single record of fieldfare last winter, numbers have been good with mixed flocks of redwing, fieldfare and song thrush roaming the island in the last few weeks. Although the ground has been frozen here too, the frost on the coast is much less severe than inland, offering some feeding opportunities to all these birds riding out the chill with us.
One disadvantage of the prolonged cold however; a crack in the pipe that supplies water from the farm well to the volunteers’ bungalow. Not such a problem really, all we have to do now is locate the pipe underground and work out where along in its 1km length the leak is! Any water-divining advice gratefully received.