BY STUART WINTER

eastern Europe, made annual visits to our school fields. A friend spotted waxwings from his classroom. Lakes and reservoirs froze. The steamy local sewage farm, with its ice-free ponds, magnetised rafts of wildfowl in the shape of goosander, pintail and whooper swans. Birdwatching was a joy and nobody moaned about the cold.

Turn the clock forward half a century and our snowflake society melts when the temperature drops below freezing. Public transport petrifies. Households hoard. Duvet days become the norm. Conversely, nature has adapted.

Warmer winters mean songbird survival rates have improved – the Dartford warbler was almost driven to extinction in 1963 – though dreams of finding unusual cold-weather species on the doorstep evaporate. The days of big freezes in the Low Countries and the Baltic sending waifs to our shores are a distant memory. One cold weather moment remains: the sight of an ermine hurtling through a snowy Norfolk meadow 40 or so years ago is perhaps the most enthralling encounter I have ever had with a wild, cold climate creature.

Polar bears and Arctic foxes have crossed my path. Snowy owls have blinked in my face. But the white missile with its black-tipped tail on a heat-seeking mission for bunny flesh produced goosebumps on goosebumps.

Stoats, the ermine’s chocolatecoated, balmier weather alter ego, are doing well in the UK. The population stands at around 460,000 and has been rising in the past 25 years. How many need to decorate themselves in their white winter finery in an age of climate change is uncertain.

Talking to nature-watching acquaintances, sightings like mine are precious and increasingly confined to the history books, or only seen when providing trim to regal gowns.

‘The days of big freezes sending waifs to our shores are a distant memory’