If the robin is the ‘Christmas bird’, then the snow bunting is the ‘white-Christmas’ one; its arrival here each winter is as irregular and unpredictable as snow during the festive season.

A number of people have been caught up in an avalanche in the Scottish Highlands and three are “possibly unaccounted for”, police said.

The winner of reality TV show Survivor escaped a genuine life-or-death drama on Africa’s highest mountain, it was revealed today.

A huge search was due to resume at first light today for two United States fighter pilots feared killed in a mid-air collision in the Scottish Highlands.