The Frozen North

This last week has seen severe frosts every night and even during daylight hours the thermometer has barely risen above zero. The landscape has begun to resemble the Arctic with even the sea beginning to freeze and the wildlife has struggled to survive. As I write the temperatures have risen above zero but we are promised more severe frosts in the run up to Christmas.
The west coast of Lancashire has been spared the snowfalls that have occurred in other parts of the country but the temperatures have been very cold by day and by night and you needed to be well wrapped up and keep on the move when out and about. I visited the Pilling and Fleetwood areas during the week and good friend Paul Foster joined me for a trip to Fleetwood and Rossall Point. We had excellent views of sanderlings and turnstones at a high tide roost and were treated to some great views of goldeneye and mergansers at the Marine Lakes. The waterfowl were concentrated in a small area of open water which may possibly have been kept open by the Fire Brigade who came down to play jets of water out into the lake.
I have posted a few images from the week showing the goldeneye and red breasted merganser on the ice covered lake at Fleetwood.Also some general shots of the views across Morecambe Bay to the snow covered Lakeland Fells and a couple from Rossall Point with sanderling on an ice covered beach and a nice male eider which obligingly drifted by on the high tide.