Winter ends and Spring starts - All White!

So February has been and gone and with it apparently winter has ended and spring has begun with the start of March. To mark this change in the seasons Mother Nature decided to give us 'The Beast from the East' meaning Arctic winds and snow which brought chaos to parts of the UK.

I had headed South on the 22 Feb with my first overnight stop at the Dalshian House B&B just outside of Pitlochry. It was nice to do a bit of garden bird watching over breakfast and see exotic species such has Great, Blue and Coal Tits and Chaffinch in addition to the Blackbirds, Dunnocks, House Sparrows and  Robins.

Dalshian breakfast heading South.

Feeders right outside the dining room window.

 
After a week on the South coast 'The Beast' had arrived from the East and the journey North was a bit more challenging with falling and drifting snow. Again I stopped at the Dalshian and the breakfast view had changed colour!!

Dalshian breakfast heading North.

With the cold snap the number of birds in the garden over the first weekend of March was considerably reduced, particularly on the House Sparrow front with only six seen. Four Greenfinches, four Starlings, three Blackbirds (one female and two males), a Robin and a Wren made up the other visitors.

In the field around the cottage, two Oystercatchers put in an appearance on the Sunday morning, the first seen in this field this year, and also a couple of Curlew. Shouldn't be too long before numbers of both these species start  to increase.