Each week the Scottish Snippets Newsletter includes a number of photographs which illustrate the weather, flora and fauna of the current week around Scotland. There are so many such graphics worth including that a separate "colour supplement" is created so as not to totally overload the Newsletter. Here is this week's crop!
The heavy snow fall last Saturday night and into Sunday morning created a winter wonderland - in mid-March. The amount of snow varied, but just north of Glasgow at Kilmardinny Loch, there was about a foot of wet snow. It had clung to the bare branches, creating a picture that almost looked as though it had been taken in black and white.
Kilmardinny Loch itself had large areas of ice, making life even more difficult for the resident waterfowl.
With all the ground covered in snow, birds had to rely on householders creating a clear patch and putting out food for them. This female chaffinch, along with dozens of other birds, had been enjoying a feed of seeds and nuts in my own back garden and was having a wee rest on the bare branches of a hawthorn tree, with feather fluffed out against the freezing temperatures, before flying down for more!
Dull weather for the rest of the week meant that pictures of snow-covered hills were hard for me to find. This picture of the Campsie Hills, north of Glasgow, was taken on Friday.
While the snow was thick on the ground, local grey squirrels were conspicuous by their absence. They presumably didn't want to have to plough through the wet snow - or get showered by the stuff if they went along tree branches. But once the snow had melted a bit, they soon reappeared. This one is enjoying a piece of apple - which the blackbirds also regard as a treat.
The sunshine on Friday encouraged this white crocus to open out. It had been buried under a foot of snow only a few days earlier.If you want to look back at earlier editions of this Colour Supplement, there is an Index Page
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