Clear as glass...

A day of pottering and processing,  both photographs and memories! Chris and I spent an hour watching birds as part of the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. As usual on Birdwatch day, the garden was unnaturally quiet, although in the end there was probably a fairly representative showing of species. Our final list was: 

Blackbird -5
Black-headed gull -1
Blue tit - 2
Carrion crow - 1
Chaffinch - 3
Coal tit - 1
Dunnock - 1
Great tit - 2
Jackdaw - 3
Long-tailed tit - 2
Magpie - 2
Robin - 1
Starling - 7
Wood pigeon - 5
Wren - 1

The best records were the wren and coal tit, as they've not been around much this winter. Numbers of many species were very low - during the cold weather we had almost uncountable numbers of blackbirds and blue-tits, not to mention over a dozen magpies and wood pigeons. One thing we did establish was that there are nine squirrels using our garden - no wonder the bird numbers are down and the food disappears so quickly. Anyone know a recipe for squirrel pie? (Only joking!)

I had hoped to get a photograph of one of our garden birds, but the light was awful and they weren't co-operative. So I had a quick trip to the Rowing Lake to catch the sunset. I was surprised to see that part of the lake was still icy, but the thawing process had made it absolutely smooth and transparent - providing perfect reflections. You can see how breezy it was from the ripples on the open water - I didn't stay out very long!