Dirty Day

There was little in the way of festive cheer this morning as Malcolm and I walked around Straw's Bridge.  As Malcolm said, it was a 'dirty day'.  Cold and raw, the rain began to fall on to the frozen ground making it treacherous to walk on.  we didn't hang about too long.  The lakes were frozen hard, which came as a bit of a surprise to us as the temperature in our garden hadn't fallen below -1C.

Dull as it was, there were still lots of birds on 'Swan Lake' including - as usual - plenty of Black-headed Gulls.

Most of the Shovelers I mentioned the other day, had gone, but three male birds were still in residence and still swimming round in circles searching for food in the freezing waters.