Thursday 24 January 2013

Cold Snap

Life feels a little bit like those Whack-a-Mole games just now - I get one thing on my list accomplished and two more spring up to take its place!
We've had some bitterly cold weather this week. On Monday there was a little snow - I loved the look of it on the bell tower of St. James' church - it reminded me a little of the pyramids outside the Louvre.



A cold-weather visitor was the male blackcap! Not great photos - the back window needs cleaning badly, but one of C's bikes is parked in front of it. We've seen a female in the garden before more than once - her cap is brown, and I was amazed to see how black the male really is.



Funny story - one of the days I was putting food out, all three robins were there. The boldest one, who I think of as dominant male (and who is now flying to the back door when he hears me) came zipping out to get some worms. The female opened her beak hoping to be fed - we've seen this courtship behaviour before. But Mr Robin's thoughts were not of love, they were of feeding himself in the cold weather so he just flew back to his perch ignoring her totally. A black mark against him as a potential father, I am sure!!

The second video is a very short snippet of the dominant male singing. I have one of the lesser male which shows the bird so much better, but no song. You can't win all the time!!



2 comments:

Sabriel said...

lovely photos but when i tried to watch the videos it says video is private

Lorraine said...

We're having a real cold snap here too. They're saying the coldest weather in 5 years. It's really been a period of extreme weather. I know my dirty windows are a photographers nightmare sometimes - they're usually the dirtiest when there's a great picture to be had! I can see your black-cap just fine, but I'm getting the same message as Sabriel on the videos.