A wood pigeon and some black headed gulls in winter plummage have visited us this week.

The tits are hiding in a warm place somewhere... I hear them but can't see them. The sparrows are popping up now and then, the robin has hidden himself in a barn with his head under his wing if he has any sense (there's a large brick garage/workshed at the end of the block that will double as a barn if necessary) and the blackbirds are bemoaning the loss of their nest site from last year. The weight of the snow has broken one of my buddliea branches, which is a good incentive for me to hack down the remainder sometime this month, before the birds start building again. It is too big and unwieldy, so it's time for it to have a radical prune.

I think the gulls were just after anything they could get... they certainly couldn't get to the feeders but there was the tail end of a home-made fat ball that was accessible. Seems like they enjoyed it.

LTS