Although the snow is still making waking along footpaths difficult, the roads in and out of the village are passable. so once the side roads are negotiated there's no problem if you take proper care.
I had to move my car this morning, and this left a snow free area of hard drive available for use.
And it didn't take this Song Thrush more than 15 minutes to make use of this facility. Pam noticed it there, breaking open a couple of snails and I sneaked outside to get a few pictures.
I think it was aware of my presence, and normally they are shy enough to move away to somewhere out of sight, but in this case, although it kept a wary eye on me, it continued and finished the job. I'm sure it's smacking it's mandibles here.
Pam put some more mixed food out on the table and the Herring Gulls immediately proved my theory about gulls being reluctant to land on such a small feeding surface wrong.
These juvenile Herring Gulls were just the vanguard, and very soon the garden was full of wheeling white wings, and a cacophony of calls.
The Herring Gull activity soon attracted loads of Black-headed Gulls, I counted forty at one point and for the first time in the garden, rather than flying over, a couple of Common Gulls came down to feed.
The table got so crowded that the old joke of counting the legs and dividing by two actually made sense if you wanted to count the feeding birds from this angle.
The Common Gulls took their time to get confident enough to stay feeding for long, but eventually took their place with their noisier relatives.
I like this portrait of a Common Gull on the snow, the slightly darker grey mantle and dark eye makes it stand out beautifully against a white background.
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