Winter

Three, four days of glorious sunshine. Icy nights, chilly days, but sun and blue skies. Today, fog and hoar frost on the trees, a painter and tracer of outlines more meticulous and accurate than a human artist. Waiting for it all to drip, drip away.

We’ve been doing family stuff - birthdays, cooking food – two days of hearty meals and puddings. Baked lemon pudding just to test the recipe, and Devil's Food Cake to celebrate. We were ready for them after walking, one day along the farm track, the next day, out in Fineshade woods, where we saw our first ever siskins (as far as we know) on a window feeder, and soon afterwards in the trees eating the seeds from pine cones. A couple of birdwatchers pointed these out to us, or we'd probably never have known what they were. The one on the feeder flew off before the cameras were ready, and the ones in the tree were out of range. There is a  picture on the RSPB page  .  It's a great site for info and you can hear each bird's song as well.
Later we passed a contender for the title of 'world's grumpiest birdwatcher' with a face like an old zinc garden bucket, battered into odd planes and angles. Our greeting was obviously over-familiar and unwelcome, for it was met with a disapproving stare. Just our interpretation, of course.