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Collared dove

Another cold day started with an invasion of the back garden by spadgers and the only time they were absent was when I went out to refill the feeders and hang up a couple of new fat-covered pine cones. I struck lucky and found a couple of ginormous ones in the shop so they may last a few days. I missed the blue tits today, the first time for weeks. One of them's a perpetual camp follower to the tawny spadgers, I probably missed it in the crowd. The coal tits prefer to avoid the crowds and come to the feeder close to the window but you could blink and miss it when one visits. It still feels odd to be surprised and delighted when a woodpigeon calls round.

• 1 Black-headed gull overhead
• 1 Coal tit
• 1 Collared dove
• 2 Dunnocks
• 2 Great tits
• 1 Herring gull overhead
• 19 House sparrows
• 2 Magpiea
• 2 Starlings
• 1 Woodpigeon

It was a hard frost on the school playing field so there were only large gulls on there in the morning. Three herring gulls stuck around but a lesser black-back didn't linger. This Winter, for the first time, herring gulls have very much outnumbered lesser black-backs on here. By lunchtime the third of the field closest to the school had thawed enough for a few black-headed gulls to drift in with the jackdaws.

I had some errands to run in Urmston. There were plenty of pigeons about, as usual, but nothing else. Even the usual spadgers and magpies were t around at the station. I hope they'd found somewhere warm.

The weather forecast is promising marginally warmer but a lot wetter or even snowy over the weekend before another cold blast. I'll have to fight the temptation to hibernate!