First snow

Woke this morning to the first real snow of the winter, only a dusting but enough to count. Stayed all day, some melt which has now frozen solid.
Lots of birds including three robins on the feeders, also the first brambling of this winter. A less welcome visitor in a large rat was seen this morning, around 11am , under the feeders, despite being 'scared' off it returned several times. The rat traps have been deployed, we'll check occupancy in the morning.

Bird feeders

It's been wet and windy over the last few days, in the early hours of Wednesday I thought the windows were coming in such was the ferocity of the wind and hail. The silver lining to this cloud has been the huge influx of birds to the feeders (the bad news being the quantity of feed being consumed, but you can't have everything!).
Today we've been visited by large numbers of chaffinches and greenfinches plus the noisy squabbling goldfinches and the first siskins arrived at lunch time followed by two bramblings this afternoon. Also visiting today were blue tits, great tits, coal tits, house sparrows (no trees today) dunnocks, robins (two) and at least one nuthatch. Mrs Blackbird has been jumping up and down on the window sill demanding her buggy nibbles and a thrush was rummaging in the shrubbery.

Weekend Update

The first bramblings of the season arrived on the feeders over the weekend, as part of a large finch flock. Just one on Saturday and then a handful more on Sunday. More lapwing to report, yesterday lunchtime around two dozen flew over the house, heading seaward this time.