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Sparrow batch: spring snow ( Newfoundland English). Newfoundland has long been a location for significant arrivals and departures. At the most easterly tip of Canada, this massive island juts into the wild Atlantic Ocean, and its cliffs, even though rugged and daunting, have been a welcome sight to those who have sailed westwards for many days.

In the eleventh century the Norse explorer Leif Eriksson landed here – becoming the first known European to set foot on the North American continent, several centuries before Christopher Columbus On disembarking, Eriksson encountered a mild climate, salmon in the rivers and plentiful grapevines, and so he named the fertile island ‘ Vinland’.

While Leif Eriksson may have found the weather here more clement than on his home farm in Greenland, the Newfoundland winters are harsh by most standards. As the weather grows more temperate in March, the most common form of precipitation is "silver thaw,” a freezing rain or drizzle which covers everything in ice. “Silver thaw” is just one of many evocative weather terms in an island dialect. “Newfinese,” as it is known among its speakers, is derived from emigrants from the West Country who followed after Eriksson, and it differs markedly from the English spoken elsewhere in Canada and the North Atlantic. One phrase you’re likely to hear just before spring is “sparrow batch.” A batch is a heavy, substantial fall of snow; a sparrow batch is a late snowfall in April, said to bring back the sparrows.

On this island bird migration is a crucial sign of seasonal change. The species that might be seen hopping over the batch are the white- throated sparrow ( with its distinctive white and yellow crown stripes), the swamp sparrow, the fox sparrow, the savannah sparrow and Lincoln’s sparrow. In late autumn they flock together to hunt for seeds among the overgrowth. But the seed supply is finite, and none of these tiny birds can remain in a place in which winter temperatures will drop well into the minuses. As the nights lengthen, they follow an instinct in their genes going back many generations, and set their course south.

Nancy Campbell is an award- winning writer whose writing has been inspired by the polar regions. Fifty Words for

Snow is published by Elliott & Thompson on 5 November, £ 12.99