Christmas Day

I managed to get out this morning for a couple of hours and headed to my office to fill up the feeders. It isn't good for your soul going into your office on Christmas Day, but the birds needed feeding. I then headed to Rawcliffe Moss to top up my feeding station. It was still very cold and my car thermometer read minus 11 Celsius. Ouch!

 There's still plenty of snow about!

As I walked down the track towards the feeding station 15 Fieldfares and 14 Blackbirds flew along the hedge in front of me. And when I got to the feeding station I could see that all the apples had gone. At the feeding station itself were 3 Yellowhammers, 156 Tree Sparrows and 17 Chaffinch.

I headed along the '97' hedge towards the wild bird seed plot and it was quiet other than a lone Buzzard and Curlew. As expected it was quiet in the wild bird seed mix as it was covered in snow. Just 20 Chaffinch, Skylark and Dunnock were trying to find food here.

 Not much food in here

It was then back to reality and join in with the festivities. Father Christmas had delivered some early Poysers that I had been after for a while including Population Ecology of Raptors, The Natural History of Cape Clear Island, The Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland, Seventy Years of Birdwatching, Flight Identification of European Raptors, watching Birds, Scarce Migrants in Britain and Ireland, Birdwatchers' Year and Wild Geese. I have been trying to complete my collection of Poysers for years. Reprints are available for all the Poyser titles, but I have been trying to make sure I have the originals and first editions where I can.

It's going to warm up over the next few days, although the increase in temperature will be accompanied by drizzle and fairly strong winds. We'll just have to wait and see and if I can get out I will.