Woodcock with ice

Opened up again today, getting there was not too bad apart from the last few hundred metres along Ellingham Drove. The main car park is too icy for cars so it is closed, but there are not huge numbers of visitors so the remaining car parking should be enough.

We actually did not get that much snow, but it is very cold, -8C last night. Surprisingly the lakes actually have less ice than they did on Tuesday, I think this is because the temperature did go up for a time during the snow and the wind also got up. Still it all looked very fine in the brilliant sunshine today, the Dockens Water (below) is still providing some open water for Little Egrets and Kingfishers, although it is iced over in places despite the flow.
Still very little sign of any birds having been displaced to Blashford, a Woodcock beside the boardwalk near Ivy South hide being one of the few. Around the feeders a couple of Brambling were good to see and the feeders are generally very busy, as might be expected. There was also a little overhead movement, mainly of Fieldfare and Skylark and mostly heading north, I think they were just confused.

Impressively three of the Thursday volunteers got to the reserve today, so we put in a couple of hours coppicing willows, it was actually very pleasant working in the sunshine this morning.

I'm not sure what the next few days will bring, it looks ok until Sunday, but the forecast then is for snow again, with more on Monday.