First Daffodils and Helibores

The daffs are now, at last, in flower in my garden, I have to say they are nothing like the wild ones I photographed at Georges Hayes for my beyond my gate blog  but these are mine and as I keep saying daffodils are one of my favorite flowers!
This is why -

But I have to say I am really enjoying my helibores too, which also burst into flower this week.

Super Moon

Tonight's super moon,
This is the closest the moon has been to earth in 18 yrs, 356,577 kms (226425 miles) away and is looking spectacular.
This was the view of it from our garden as it rose into the night sky.

Hope you enjoyed your views as much!

My feathered friends feeding frenzy

This is what I am watching from my chair whilst sat at my computer, It has been like this all day!

This mornings sunrise over the common

Beautiful delicate frost today, only vegetation over a certain height had any frost, so most of the common was green but where it hadn't been cut in the Autumn and all the trees were white,- quite stunning!

The first tentative signs that spring is just around the corner

It' not here yet, not by any stretch of the imagination, but the sun has shown itself again, after a week of gloom, so I took the opportunity to have a walk around our sodden garden and sure enough the first signs of Spring emerging became more evident as I looked harder.

honeysuckle

mixed bulbs

rhubarb

snowdrops

primrose

A mixture of black and white.

From our gate we look across a common, the common is separated on far side from fields by a brook, which is currently flooded. This has attracted hundreds of geese and ducks, I have posted pictures of these floods on my 'beyond my gate' blog.
Today looking across the common two Mute swans had taken up their positions by the brook and covering the fields beyond were hundreds of crows.

Mr S walked along the footpath across the common this afternoon when walking our dog, what a commotion! 

It was a mixed group of Carrion crows and Jackdaws.

Black and white on such a grey day, oh for some brighter days with colour again... please

So how does a squirrel manage to defy a squirrel proof bird feeder?

So as you can see, the squirrel has returned and it is costing us a fortune in bird seed!

The reason it is managing to get to the seed is really quite obvious.

Half way up the feeder pole is a circular tray which acts as a barrier, and for a couple of years it did very effectively.

The only problem is the tray is now in a very sorry state, this is mainly due to a design flaw.

When it rains water runs down the inside of the poles even though there is a cap of sorts on the top,

when the water reaches the base it has no where to go, so gradually the pole fills up with water.

Then when it gets cold the water freezes causing this to happen....

See how the top pole section is being pushed out ! 

 So before the ice pushes the top pole out totally, which will send everything crashing to the ground again and causing even more damage to the tray, I had better get out there and remove the offending ice!

There all done! 

 and before I've even managed to close the door the birds have already returned to feed!

Our Brambling!

I've never had so many attempts at photographing a visiting bird as this! Every time I moved the camera up to my eye it would fly off, that is until I finally caught it unawares!
He had been visiting the garden for at least an hour before I managed to get these

From left to right goldfinch, brambling, great tit and another goldfinch

 While I was waiting I took a few more pics of some of today's garden visitors

oh look the siskins have stayed around!

tree sparrow and blue tit

collared dove

and just for comparison this is a chaffinch!

The return of a winter favourite

The siskin are back! at the moment we only have a couple of females, the male usually appears a bit later on, so I am hoping we will get at least one of those too!
Siskins are pretty small birds, they never seem too nervous of humans, I have stood within inches of them watching them feed in the past.
Once on a family walk in my childhood, I found a bone lying on the ground amongst some leaves, goodness knows how I spotted it but I did! My mother and I took it along the our local museum in Taunton, where they identified it as a siskins pelvis. I had never seen a siskin at that time but I knew what they looked like as my favourite book was my 'Observer book of Birds' and the kind lady in the museum showed us a stuffed one that was in the very large collection of stuffed birds in the museum!
It took quite a few more years before I saw a living one, but now they are one of the birds I look out for every year in my garden at this time of year and this morning they arrived!

winters steely grey skies

These are our wintry scenes today, it is so cold!