Winter images

Last Friday was supposed to be my last day of school before the Christmas holidays. But I opened my curtains in the morning to see a snow-covered garden. School was cancelled, and I was so glad to be able to have a lie-in. The photo below shows the garden as the sun came up.

It had snowed pretty hard for much of Thursday night here in South-east England, and it was a cold morning on Friday. This cold weather and snow has really attracted a lot of interesting birds to the garden, as well as the usual visitors. We have seen a Great Spotted Woodpecker visit the garden almost daily for the last two weeks, which has been great to see. Also, two Blackcaps have been around, as well as two Redwing, which seem to be very numerous around here at the moment. Last week, we saw a Brambling visit the garden too, which was feeding among the Chaffinches.

Great, Coal, Blue and Long-tailed tits have been visiting in groups, surrounding the feeders. A photo of a Great Tit can be seen below. Still no sign of any roosters in our camera nest box, and actually, I haven't seen any daytime visits either. Hopefully this will pick up into January. I very nearly got a good shot of a Coal Tit in our apricot tree, but it flew away at the moment I was about to press the shutter button on my camera!

Starlings were frequent visitors too, squabbling in numbers over who's turn it was to feed on the fall block. It was great to see a Blackbird look so at home in the garden too, as we didn't really see this in the summer/autumn. The feeders needed topping up frequently during the day. It made me think that it must be hard for a small bird such as a Blue Tit to survive in such cold weather. They really didn't stop feeding all day, showing that it really is important to feed our garden birds at this time of year.

Generally, you would guess that it is our smallest birds which struggle most in the cold winter months, and this is mostly the case. However, I recently learnt that Coal Tits survive surprisingly well despite their tiny size. In the book, "A Field Guide to the Wildlife of the British Isles", by Alice Tomsett, it says, "The Coal Tit survives well in cold weather as it feeds on insects living underneath bark".

Last Sunday, we travelled up to Oldham to see my Grandpa, to find that it had snowed there too! On a walk on the hills of Oldham, it became very difficult to see anything. You'll see what I mean when you see the photo below!

The photo has come out a slightly strange colour, but hopefully you can get an idea as to what it was like there. Because it was so foggy, it was almost impossible to see where the land ended, and the sky started.

The roads were pretty dangerous at this point, as you can see from the photo below.

Back in his garden, the local birds were out in the snow feeding, similarly to how they were at home. A few starlings dropped down onto an arch in the garden, and sat there, waiting for an opportunity to feed. It was great to see so many birds making use of a single feeder that day. The birds which were unable to get a spot on the feeder fed on the ground, eating any fallen seeds from the feeder.

With Christmas just two days away, I wonder how many people in the UK have snowy gardens on Christmas day. I suspect there will still be some in ours. Lastly, if you are travelling over the next couple of days, I hope you all have safe journeys. Have a great Christmas!