Birding Brilliance

Today has been the best ever day of bird watching I've had in the garden. Its been none stop with (area) rarities. It started at lunch time with a visit from a Male Reed Buntin. We've only ever had one in the garden at that was exactly 12 months ago, well 12 months on the 15th April to be exact. He didn't stay long but I was lucky to capture a couple of shots of him before he disappeared completely. Then around 2pm I was watching what I though was a female Siskin from behind when it turned around and I realised it was a REDPOLL!! Now I've only ever seen one of these once before in my life and that was literally a 5 second glimpse in the garden back on the 15th of May last year. This one stayed all afternoon and was quite a feisty little bird, taking no nonsense from the male Siskin's. From the front they are so distictive with their red cap and chestThen when I thought it couldn't get better a spotted a female Reed Bunting. She only stayed a few minutes, its a shame she missed the male by a few hours. I thought originally she may be the one from last week but this one isn't ringed, so definitely a different bird. So that's 3 mega rarities for the garden along with a flock of Siskin's which are usually quite rare in this area, here all in one day, wow. As you can tell from the photo's, we've had a lot of snow over night and during the day. A good few inches and its not showing any sign of abating yet. I'm not complaining though as it's the bad weather that's brought these amazing birds to my garden. I saw the woodpecker feeding on the ground today which I've never seen before. This poor male Black Bird was braving the blizzard. The Blue Tits had to dig deep for their food today. Last night I went out for drinks with my good friends Chris and Penny, we had a lovely time. Even though I was absolutely shattered when I got home I couldn't resist trying out the new Chimnea in the dark and its amazing. I was sat in my rocking chair out on the veranda with a cup of tea and the chimnea glowing brightly, it was lovely and made me feel so snuggly and warm.