THE late winter of 2001 has been as severe as any in recent times and as I write these notes, the night temperature fell below -7 degrees C and the ground is white with frost.

I do not need to get my boots on to realise that our birds and mammals must be hard pressed. Now is the time to gather up scraps of food and pile up on a bird table or an upturned dustbin lid.

Try if you can to provide a supply of fat because this provides lots of essential energy. Birds will survive if their body temperature is maintained.

Our body temperature is around 37C but that of birds is around 41C. This means that they need to obtain more food compared to their body weight than mammals in order to operate their body functions. In very frosty weather do not forget to provide the birds with clean water to drink.

If you stock your bird table carefully then you will not only get the expected species but you may well find great spotted woodpecker, nuthatch and wrens taking food.

This morning I had 14 long tailed tits feeding on my patio. The birds which suffer most in freezing conditions are those which obtain their food from the water. It is likely that the populations of kingfisher and heron may decline and the same must be said for the water rail which is already rare. The water rail is a very shy bird which lives among reeds and has a long thin beak with which it probes for food.

Species which feed by pushing their bills into soft mud to find food will also suffer in frost The species under pressure include curlew, lapwing and snipe. These and other species were in the process of moving from the coast up to the hills and moors where they breed.

Wildfowl also suffer when ponds, reservoirs and canals freeze over. Birds, however, have two valuable characteristics -- wings and a sense of instinct. They seem to know that it is warmer on the coast and so they move along river courses to the seaside. It does not worry me to see birds under pressure. This is only nature's way of controlling populations. When our wildlife is destroyed by human greed or pollution incidents, then I am much more concerned.

I do, however, hope that the March weather will improve and birds can concentrate once more on their breeding cycle.

Beside the seaside

AS walking in the countryside is not so sensible at the moment, I decided to follow the birds to the seaside and walked the stretch of beach between St Annes and Blackpool.

It is pleasing to hear that these beaches have now passed the bathing waters standards for the first time, although I resisted the temptation to have a dip even though the sun was shining and the sky was blue.

The wind was, to say the least, chilling! My walk soon warmed me up and I started beachcombing. There was plenty to see including lots of bird feathers. Not all these structures are alike. There are contour feathers which give the birds their shape. Then there are down feathers which provide insulation. On the wings there are the large flight feathers which provide the power and there are other feathers which control braking and steering.

East Lancashire and the Fylde Coast have British Aerospace Systems factories and it is fascinating to see that birds have solved the problems faced by the aircraft industry. The peregrine, for example, is the Eurofighter of the bird world, and perhaps inoffensive birds can be compared with passenger aircraft.

It was not just the discarded feathers on the beach which interested me. I found a dead starfish and nearly 100 creatures called sea potatoes, also known as heart urchins. These creatures belong to a classification of animals known as Echino Derms which translates as spiny skins. Just below their skin spines are impaled and scientists have long known that these animals eventually developed into the vertebrates, the first of which were the fish.

Then came the amphibians and the reptiles of which the dinosaurs are the most famous. These creatures eventually evolved into the birds and the mammals which are the dominant animals in the world today.