I, and everyone here at Snow Watch, would like to thank you for taking the time to contribute to the blog, the Flickr group and the video uploader. What you sent us has had a profound effect on the way we constructed the programme. I would have liked to have included far more of your thoughts, pictures (especially your pictures, they were amazing) and videos.

If we had had more time to weave them in we would have, but it was so frantic some of our ideas fell by the wayside in the rush to simply make a reasonable hour of Snow Watch.

If you haven't looked at the BBC Snow Watch Flickr group please, please do. I don't think we have ever had such outstanding pictures.

Let's hope the weather eases off a bit and gives our wonderful wildlife a break from this relentless cold.

After the first snowfall you can see what's been going on all around your patch. I was horrified to see just how many times the fox had trotted around my chicken run! I saw that roe deer had come right up to the back door - I had absolutely no idea they wandered so far into the garden and around the house.

Just occasionally you can see where the track of a bird or mouse suddenly ends - with the unmistakable splay of the wings of an attacking bird of prey imprinted in the snow. It's the most wonderful detective work - when you are following in the footsteps of the fox, watching how he sniffs around here there and everywhere, you can practically see him trotting along in front of you.

If you fancy doing a bit of tracking in the show, I can heartily recommend this simple downloadable guide (PDF) to some of the most common animal tracks, for you or the children.

And if you think you're a bit of an expert see if you know what made these tracks.

Happy tracking!

(Read why I love tracking animals in the snow.)

We reckon we know most of them, what do you think?

If you're stuck on these or curious about mystery pawprints of your own have a look at this fabulous track sheet from BBC Breathing Places.

And sure enough something has.

A BBC commissioner had noticed there was rather a lot of snow about. "Must be a bit tough for wild life in the snow..." she mused. "Hang on... perhaps there's a programme in this - if we move quickly. What shall we call it? Er... I know, how about Snow Watch, a bit like that Autumnwatch. Hey, good idea."

That was Wednesday - and now we're flat out, putting together a programme for the middle of next week!

As usual, to make it a real success, we're asking for your help.

On thing we've just heard is that the record for the most number of wrens in one nest box (trying to keep warm) has been broken. We are desperately trying to contact the man in Lancashire who reported it. The rumour is he filmed it too. (By the way the old record was an incredible 61!!)

See you next Wednesday... Gulp!

So please, please, if you have a moment, post a comment below and tell us your stories, your questions, your observations of what's going in the natural world during this, the hardest winter we've had for 30 years.

Thank you very much, and don't forget you can post your snowy pictures on the new Snow Watch Flickr group and send in your snowy videos to the Autumnwatch video uploader. We're standing by to try to get them into Snow Watch!

Update: 22 January 2010: We've made a new post to answer some of your questions and discuss some of your fascinating stories.

Here are the answers to the colour scheme quiz...

Top guessers in order:
Tom
Steve Baxter
Billy Clapham

And the bonus questions... no one got! (Although EatYerGreens was close.)

Thanks for playing!

Another weekly update on bird world news from our friends at the BTO.

Cold and stormy weather also pushes some birds onto inland lakes and reservoirs. The Bird Track map below, showing 10km squares in which great northern divers were reported, indicates at least seven inland locations where this unusual bird has been seen recently. Last week Grafham Water in Cambridgeshire hosted six individuals, an unusually high number for an inland site.

At nearly 1m in length and with a wingspan closer to 1.5m, the great northern diver is the largest species of diver regularly recorded in Britain and Ireland. Only its close relative the yellow-billed diver is bigger but they are very rare visitors to our waters.

Divers go by a different name across the pond: loons! There are two explanations for this name. The first is their movements out of water; the feet are positioned so far back on the body that they appear to be lame (from the old Norse word: lōmr). The other explanation is that they were named with the Middle English word for a crazy person, 'loun', on account of their haunting, wailing breeding calls.

And finally, if you thought snorkelling was something reserved for warm-water beach holidays, divers make a habit of it all year round, even in the waters around our coasts. Prior to fully submerging, divers will often swim around with their heads under water, checking to see if there are any juicy fish worth chasing. Come to think of it, I think I would do the same rather than plunging into the icy depths on the off-chance!

Another wonderful weekly catch up on bird world news from our friends at the BTO.

Waxwings are incredibly popular birds; not only do they look stunning and give a wonderful trilling call, but they also have a penchant for the crop of ornamental berry trees, which regularly attract them to areas of human habitation. Perhaps because they breed in areas where very few people live, waxwings are often fearless and can be easily observed gorging themselves on rowan, hawthorn or whitebeam berries, or lazily digesting their meals whilst perched on TV aerials or in leafless trees. The size and timing of waxwing irruptions are influenced by post-breeding population size and the abundance of its favourite food during autumn dispersal; let's hope 2009/10 proves to be another waxwing winter!

Stranded seabirds featured in two Autumnwatch blog posts in November. On 13 Nov we asked you to do something a bit gruesome: to check any tideline bird corpses for rings and (the less gruesome bit) for anyone lucky enough to find a bird with a ring on its leg to report the ring number. You never know, you might just find a bird with a story as incredible as that of a Manx shearwater! 2009 is the centenary of bird ringing; BTO bird ringers from across the country will be flocking to Swanwick in Derbyshire 4-6 December to share their latest findings and join in the celebrations. Visit our website if you are interested in finding out more about bird ringing.

It's pretty quiet here in Autumnwatch Towers, but this has kept us entertained today. It's a tricky one and no one has managed to get all seven correct yet!

Do you recognise these birds from their colourschemes?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Bonus 1.

Bonus 2.

Bonus 3.

Post your guesses by commenting below.

Had a go? Check out the Colour scheme quiz answers.

Another wonderful weekly catch up on bird world news from our friends at the BTO.

Living on an island, when we experience 'big' weather there is always a chance that we will experience some unusual birds too. In that respect we haven't been disappointed. Blown in to inshore waters, Leach's petrels have been reported from Lancashire to Hampshire. Ordinarily, this song thrush sized bird spends its life out at sea or on an isolated island in the North Atlantic when breeding. This week, however, even land-lubbers have had the chance to catch up with this enigmatic bird.

Single Leach's petrels have been seen at Grafham Water, Cambridgeshire, Staines Reservoir, Surrey and on the William Girling Reservoir, London. Many more have been seen from coastal watchpoints. Exhausted birds are sometimes found well away from water, exemplified by a storm petrel (a close relative of Leach's petrel) that was picked up and taken into care six miles inland from Port Talbot in south Wales last week. Let's hope that one makes a full recovery!

Grey phalaropes often occur during the same weather patterns as Leach's petrels. During the last week several of these intriguing waders have been reported and once again, some of these have been from land-locked waters. What makes phalaropes unusual for a wader is that they are more often seen swimming on the surface of the water than 'wading'.

With more of the same weather forecast for the next few days it is worth getting out and checking your local, gravel pit, reservoir, village pond or canal. You never know you might be lucky enough to find one of these northern seafarers, even if you are no where near the sea.

For those that have been following the swallow migration, it is interesting to note that two have been seen today in Gloucestershire, with another in Lothian. Will these birds make it to South Africa? Probably not. It is highly likely that the weather will change and these birds will find it increasingly difficult to find food, not being able to get far enough south quickly enough to ensure warmer temperatures and the availability of airborne insect food. However, in 2007 and 2008 swallows managed to survive the winter in both Cornwall and Pembrokeshire (with a little help from their friends), so you never know.

Here's another selection of our favourites from the last few weeks.

Thank you for your contributions!

Many thanks to our contributors who are all members of the Autumnwatch Flickr group. Their wonderful photography can be seen by clicking on the images below.

First 3 correct guessers in order were:
James Hume
Nicola Main
lalows

Well done everyone! We hope you enjoyed it!

I put the feeders where I can see them when I'm washing up and what a joy: warm suds, a good honest scourer and constant stream of acrobatic, dazzling squabbling visitors whizzing about, and every now and then something really exciting, perhaps a great spotted woodpecker, a marsh tit, and... was that a nuthatch?

So bird feeders in the garden - a few general principles. What to feed them? Think energy and variety. In winter especially birds are living on a knife edge, some need to eat 40% or more of their body weight every day, that would be around 65lb of pizza pasta and pakoras for me.. imagine! So high energy food, fat, fatty nuts like peanuts are all good.

Variety - different species like different types of food so the more types of food on offer the greater variety of visitors your likely to attract. Some birds like the incredibly beautiful goldfinch are specialist seed eaters and will mainly go for tiny black niger seeds. Personally I've always put out niger seeds in the special niger seed feeder. The goldfinces always seem to find it and the sight of four or six goldfinches all feeding together is superb. I just can't understand people who say our birds are dull. A great spotted woodpecker, a goldfinch, a bullfinch... surely they rival any birds in the world?

Well, except for maybe a Cuban trogon, a flock of dazzling scarlet macaws, the rainbow lorikeet... er... well, you get the picture... and anyway we've got the kingfisher!

Back to feeders. Sacks of nuts and seeds can be expensive and the birds will also be happy with a bit of old cake, a half-rotten apple, some cheese and stale bread - soaked if you can, but in water NOT milk. Birds can't digest milk and it's now thought to be very bad for them... but hang on! How about the blue tits that used to peck the top off our milk bottles all those years ago? They didn't seem to have a problem with milk. Anyone know the answer to this conundrum?

So a good variety of energy rich foods is a perfect first step. Where to put the food? Positioning feeders is a bit of an art, one I think my mother may have slipped up on. Birds often like to have some good cover fairly nearby so they can escape if danger threatens. Also they can fly into the cover, fairly close to the feeder, and have a good look around to check the coast is clear before they jump on. Many tits and finches like to land in a nearby tree and work their way down the tree to the feeder. BUT don't put the feeder close to cover which could also hide a.. erm.. playful cat.

Put yourself inside the head of the blue tit - is it safe around here? Can I get away in an emergency? If you are feeding on or near the ground make sure the chances of an ambush are reduced to a minimum.

Be patient. Sometimes it takes the birds a while to find the feeders. If your garden, or the gardens around you, are used by cats you're going to have a problem. If all your birds disappear it's worth checking if a neighbour has got a new cat. Have a look at the Breathing Places website if you want to find out how to help cats to be wildlife-friendly.

Cats are one thing but I see some other predators in a very different light. If you have been really successful and your bird feeding is drawing in a host of lovely critters you may see this.... One moment a sweet chaffinch flitting toward the feeders, then bang! A puff of feathers and it's gone, you've been sparrowhawked! It's totally natural and surely the ultimate accolade for the really successful bird feeder. It's been shown that, over time, the sparrowhawk makes no actual impact on overall bird numbers so don't worry, you can just marvel at the flashing view of one of nature's most spectacular and beautifully designed predators at work.

For more information have a look at my previous blog on what to feed birds, or watch my guide on how to feed your garden birds.

Stocks of hedgerow berries were good this autumn, but many are now being demolished by flocks of immigrant blackbirds, fieldfares and redwings. Later in the year, as winter takes hold, many of these birds will move into gardens (particularly if we get a cold snap) and will look for ornamental trees and shrubs, such as Sorbus, Cotoneaster and Pyracantha. If you want to increase your chances of seeing these birds, why not plant some berry-producing shrubs of your own? A guide to what to plant can be found here.

One bird that is clearly less evident in gardens this year is the greenfinch, whose population has been hit by a disease that first appeared in the summer of 2005. The disease, known as trichomonosis, is caused by a single-celled parasite. Infected birds appear fluffed-up, lethargic and may show difficulty in swallowing food. Good hygiene measures at garden feeding stations are important to reduce the risk of transmission between visiting birds. Guidelines include cleaning your feeders, bird tables and bird baths on a weekly basis, and moving the feeding station around the garden to a fresh location every couple of weeks. More information on the disease is available from here.

Looking back over the autumn's marvellous migration stories it has been a particularly good season for firecrests, highlighted by Chris and Kate's encounter with one at Portland Bird Observatory in programme 2. Despite their close relative the goldcrest having a terrible time of things, the BirdTrack reporting rate for firecrest doubled compared to the first half of October 2008. One possible explanation for this is the firecrest's more southerly distribution; unlike its cousin, firecrests rarely breed in Scandinavia and only breed in small numbers in Britain, with most of the population spending the winter in France or further south. This may have saved continental birds from the worst of last winter's weather, so although the British breeding population appears to have suffered, there were still plenty of firecrests just across the Channel that reached us during the course of Autumnwatch.

Finally, looking forward to some treats that might be in store over the winter. Our most secretive breeding heron species, the bittern, enjoyed its best-ever breeding season in 2009 and at this time of year, continental birds will be joining our own burgeoning bittern population. Any very cold snaps provide the perfect opportunity to seek out this normally shy species, as birds are forced from the cover of dense reedbeds to hunt for eels and other fish in any remaining unfrozen water. There are lots of great places to look for bitterns in winer; Minsmere (Suffolk), Leighton Moss (Lancashire) and Blacktoft Sands (East Yorkshire) RSPB reserves come to mind but they are found in all sorts of suitable wetland habitats and there may well be a bittern lurking near you!

A quick quiz this week... Can you identify this mystery object? Chris brought it in. He thinks it's the bee's knees (not literally).