Life in the freezer

The 1st and 2nd of March 2018 will live long in the memory for being the coldest and snowiest days we have ever experienced on Skomer. The temperature on the 1st did not get above -2 and dipped as low as -6. It felt just as cold and the wood burner was on all day. There were four hot water bottles in our bed that night. Sarah's previous post 'life in the fridge' touched upon conditions that day, the ponds were frozen and birds were visibly starting to struggle.

The next day was still very cold and it was clear the conditions were harsher than we, with our wood burners and hot water bottles, could  truly appreciate. Thousands of Redwings, Fieldfares, Lapwings and Golden Plovers passed over trying to escape the frozen conditions. At around midday it started snowing harder and kept it up into the evening. The entire island was covered in snow and in places the snow drifts were knee deep. This may not be unusual in Russia but it is here. I took my camera out and although the lens kept getting wet and the light was bad I tried to capture as much of the spectacle as possible. To hear more about how the birds fared simply check out the Recent Sightings tab at the top of this page.

It came in through our doors and windows

North Haven

Bee wearing many layers of clothing

Freezing pipes

Bee and Sarah

Now snowing hard

The Farm

Frozen ponds

The horse-course

The Wick

Toms House

Snow drifts

The Neck

The slip

So 'The Beast from the East' brought the freezing temperatures and storm Emma brought the snow and we, and Skomer's wildlife, just had to just sit it out.

Ed, Bee and Sarah