Hopefully today will be the last day of the very cold weather, with much warmer temperatures forecast for tomorrow.
Today though was very cold, when I stated my car this afternoon, just to check it would start, the thermometer was reading -7 deg. Fortunately the wind had dropped and it didn't actually feel that cold. For a while I thought that the freezing fog we'd be warned about was going to arrive. The church had disappeared from view and it seemed to be closing in. This was as bad as it god, and by sunset it was much clearer.
The front garden pond has now frozen over, except for a small area where some water is being pumped down the stream. It would be an ideal habitat to find a wandering Woodcock, but so far, unlike several Kent birders I haven't had one in the garden.
Kingsdown Road looked pretty bleak today and from the look of most cars along the road most people had decided to stay off the roads at the moment.
There were no new arrivals in the garden today and I was forced to take a few photographs through the window. The Pied Wagtail remained around but I say no sign of the Grey Wagtail today.
There was also another visit from a Brambling, I don't think it was same one as a few days ago. I did go on a feeder for a short while, but it didn't seem as confident as the Goldfinches in this position.
There are increasing numbers of Goldfinches around the garden and their noisy harsh calls, signalling a bit of conflict when two are contesting a favoured feeding perch are constantly heard.
The Brambling fed on the ground for a while, but after one of the periodic panics, possibly due to an unseen cruising Sparrowhawk, it didn't return.
I was surprised that the Blackbirds tolerated this Song Thrush feeding on the berries, they are normally quick to chase each other of their patch and not normally welcoming to any other birds.
Pam took a couple of nice pictures as dusk arrived. The clouds here look as if there is still a lot of snow waiting to be dropped, but thankfully so far we've be free of fresh falls since mid-morning.
The fog had lifted when Pam took this from the attic window, looking towards the remaining two sisters (What would Checkov say about that?)
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