Despite almost constant rain, I trekked down to Cardiff Bay today to see for myself an example of what’s called ‘cold weather movement’ in bird populations. As you can see from this photo, the hills behind Cardiff are still white with the snow that fell across much of Britain yesterday, though none remains here at sea level.

And it’s that snowfall that caused a large number of Skylarks to leave their usual hilly pastures and head down to the Bay to feed on the grassy areas of the Barrage. One local birder counted 88 Skylarks there yesterday. Today, in a fenced off area, protected from the returning dogs and their humans, just a dozen birds remained, but it was still worth getting soaked to see such a phenomenon.