Sacha wrote:
On 8/1/09 12:26, in article , "Alan
Johnson" wrote:

Sacha wrote:
-6C here last night and a white start to the day.

snip

The birds are eating us
out of house and home and to our real pleasure, the long-tailed tits are
back. We saw them for the first time ever last year and then they
disappeared. But today they're back on the peanut feeder, vying for space
with the blue tits.

We also have a lot of birds in the garden, although I'm sorry to say I'm
not very good at identifying them yet. We put lots of food out for them
in this weather. Of those that I do recognise we have blue tits and
great tits, greenfinches, sparrows, robins, thrushes and blackbirds.
Last week I saw a hawfinch (had to look that and the greenfinches up in
my bird book). The crows and magpies appear to have returned since last
week and I was also surprised to see our regular summer and autumn
visitor, the woodpecker. I'm not sure what woodpecker it is: it's grey
and black with a red head, or red markings around the head. There seem
to be several that look vaguely similar.

Hope you'll warm up soon, Alan - let us know how it goes. Reading your post
reminds me of why that huge Camellia at Pilnitz near Dresden, has its own
greenhouse on wheels for the winter! I think you get colder where you are,
don't you?

Yes. On the whole, I describe the climate as similar to the UK, but the
extremes do tend to be more pronounced. Winters have been milder over
recent years but -10°C to -15°C isn't really unusual. And a warm summer
is 30°C but over the (many) years I have now lived in Germany I have
seen 40°C+ a number of times.

Last night was around -15°C.

Regards

--
Alan Johnson, Geotr@ns
www.geotrans-online.de
German-English, Geosciences/Technical
http://geotransblog.blogspot.com/
Terminus Est