Last time there was a cold snap and ponds froze over, I admired other people's photographs and stayed in the warm.  With a sunny weekend ahead and some time to spare, I got out and about and vsited Greylake on Saturday and Catcott Lows followed by a return to Greylake on Sunday.  What a difference the ice makes to our waterbirds!  For a start, there were far more teal and wigeon than I've seen before at Greylake and I didn't see a single duck on the ice or in the water at Catcott Lows.Normally Catcott Lows is seething with duck.  Where did the pintail and shovelers go?  I have no idea but please let me know if you do!

The duck seem to huddle together in this weather a little more than usual both on the water and on the ice unless it's my imagination.  Getting in and out of the water and onto the ice takes a bit of manoeuvring.  Landing on ice isn't for the fainthearted either and the wigeon seemed to be quite adept at hovering before touchdown which must be safer than the slide landings adopted by some others.  On Saturday at Greylake there was a rather comic scene when a female mallard looked around apparently disgusted by the sight of all the ice and then set off on foot to the nearest grassy area.  This prompted a major migration of mallard, wigeon teal and a pair of moorhens more or less in single file behind her onto the grass.

The snipe have become a lot more visible since the big freeze and I noted one individual had found a crack in the ice on the sunny side of a tuft of reeds and was probiong the hole.  Today was a little warmer and they were feeding on the grass.  They were joined by a ruff for a while until it stalked off over the ice to join a godwit.  This same patch of grass was favoured by a lapwing which periodically chased off the smaller birds to keep it to itself.

For the sake of the birds I hope the freeze doesn't last long.  However, from a photographic viewpoint it provides some interesting new scenes to capture.