Robin

A robin (Erithacus rubecula).  In snowy weather these can be very tolerant of humans.  Zoe was attempting to get this one to eat out of her hand, but without success as it was continually being distracted by people feeding the ducks nearby.

Photo taken beside the middle lake, Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2010-01-09.

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/photo/VB_zjxjPBWPmsD_zcVxEMw?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_XvboqqAMSuo/S0iZGOniWHI/AAAAAAAAGMc/LtdJE9zb0Kk/s800/Erithacus-rubecula-Robin-20100109.JPG" /></a>

Leaf Beetle

From the late summer of 2006: a tiny orange-brown leaf beetle.  At that time I held out no hope of identifying such a small insect; there was nothing like it in the two Michael Chinery books that I owned, and I had not yet come across any web-sites that were really useful for identifying obscure beetles like this one.  Even now I find the major beetle site, koleopterologie.de, a lot more difficult to browse than, say, the corresponding sites for moths and flies ukmoths.org.uk and diptera.info.

However, I recently realized that this beetle was similar in structure to the irridescent green dock beetles Gastrophysa viridis that I had also seen in the same area.  That then led me to Mike Hackston's keys for UK Chrysomelidae which enabled me to final identify the beetle as Gonioctena olivacea (Coleoptera: Chrysolmelidae).

Photo taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2006-08-27.

Diamond-Back Moth

I came across this small, slim moth back in late spring, while I was photographing bugs in the long grass.  It looked a bit different from the grass moths I had been seeing in that area.  I only managed one photo before it flew off and didn't get round to trying to identify until six months later.  When I did, I found it to be a diamond-back moth, Plutella xylostella (Lepidoptera: Ypononmeutidae).

Photo taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2009-05-23.

Snowman

A snowman built by some of our neighbours.  My daughter says it is meant to be the Japanese cartoon character Totoro.  The hole in its stomach contains baby Totoros.

Cold

Following on from the heavy snow of the night before, last night the temperature here dropped to -8.5C, that is, according to the Reading University Atmospheric Observatory live weather data.  According to the Met Office Latest Observations page the temperature last night dropped well below -10C in several places in England, Scotland and Wales.  The record seems to have been -17.1C recorded at RAF Benson, just 23km north from here:

This brings back memories of the winter of 1981-82. I was living in Guisborough at the time. One night in December, I was out in the back garden with my telescope, trying to follow some variable stars.  There was compacted snow and ice under foot and my fingers were starting to stick to the metal parts of the telescope. Then I noticed that the thermometer had gone off the bottom of its scale at -13C, and I realized it was rather risky for me to be outside by myself. I had no desire  to be discovered frozen solid with my eye still at the eyepiece the following morning.  So I abandoned my observing session and went back indoors.  I later discovered that a weather station at Wilton ICI, just 6km away, recorded -17C that night.

Update on Fri 2010-01-08 by Tristram Brelstaff

According to later reports, the coldest was -18C recorded at Woodford in Cheshire.  However that did not show up on the hourly temperatures for Woodford on the Met Office site.