River Levels

For some time the Environment Agency has been posting the river levels from their measuring stations on-line.  
But it can be some what difficult to navigate through its web site to find the desired river level (for example - the river Ock is found at https://flood-warning-information.service.gov.uk/station/7081).
The Environment Agency has now made this data publicly available and data mining and mapping company Shoothill (http://www.shoothill.com/) has taken it and produced an interactive map of live data of the  river levels in England & Wales:  http://www.gaugemap.co.uk/#!Map

Not only is this data available on their web site, but river level updates are available via twitter and can have widgets which can be embedded into web sites (such as the Ock widget, now in the panel on the right hand side).
The river levels can also be followed on Twitter and Facebook - which not only give the river levels, but any flood alerts too.

The widgets for three rivers in Abingdon are embedded below:

River Ock (Tesco Weir) 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/riverlevel_2453

Thames (Abingdon Lock):
Twitter: https://twitter.com/riverlevel_0962

River Stert:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/riverlevel_2452

Life and Death on a Sunday Afternoon.

For a blog about the River Ock, it has hardly featured as a subject since May last year.  So a gap in rain and gales on Sunday afternoon provided the opportunity for a walk along the river to see if anything had changed in the previous few months.
As it's winter, it's perhaps not surprising to see that the river is high, although it will take a lot more rain before it bursts it's banks.
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As per normal for a dark cold day this there of year, there isn't much to see.  But along the side of the river, there are signs of an animal which is very seldom seen - fresh water muscles.
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Maybe the muscles died a natural death and then were washed up the last time the river burst it's banks. Although muscles are a favourite food of otters, so maybe this is circumstantial evidence that they are still active on the Ock.
Perhaps the most likely explanation is they were washed up and an opportunist corvid took advantage of their unfortunate situation.
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Another animal which met an unfortunate demise is this rabbit, quite what  set of circumstances caused it be squashed on a footpath will probably be never be known.
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Yet it's not just signs of death along the river, a buttercup is starting to flower in the flood meadow, even though Meadow Buttercup doesn't normally flower till April.
Perhaps another symptom of our mixed up winter?
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Candlemas

Some  perennial plants such as daffodils, snowdrops and crocuses survive the hardships of winter by accumulating food in their bulbs and then when spring approaches, the warmer and lighter days result in the plant putting it's efforts into producing flowers.
With the traditional day of the first snowdrop flowers being Candlemas Day (2nd February).

But this year it has been different... 

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Like a lot of places, the snowdrops in our garden have been in flower before Christmas.

Rather than flowering on Candlemas, quite of a few are loosing their flowers and once again returning to storing food in their bulbs:

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It's not only the snowdrops aren't the only ones, the daffodils, which normally flower in March, have also started to flower prematurely.

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And so have the crocuses, which usually flower towards the end of February.
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The cause of this early flowering is the unseasonable warm weather the South of England has had in the past few months.
In 2013 the average UK temperature was  5.7 Celsius, in 2014 it was 4.4 and in 2015 it was 7.9 (reaching a maximum temperature of 16.6 in Sunderland) [1].

Whilst it is always good to see flowers on a winters day, it may have an adverse affect on on hibernating animals like insects, bats and hedgehogs.
Yet for animals which don't hibernate - like water voles, this may actually be good news as they won't have to seek food in harsh conditions.

Whether this mild winter is temporary or a more permanent change, time will tell.

Sources: 
[1] Met Office: www.metoffice.gov.uk/