Incoming!

We had quite a hard frost this morning and the temperature was still hovering just above freezing at 11:00 when I went out to do the shopping. Not cold for many of you but for us a very welcome change to the unseasonal mild windy and very wet weather that has plagued us for the last few months.  The birds certainly found it a surprise and there was lots of activity on the feeder and pond (the waterfall prevents it freezing over completely unless it gets a lot colder).

I filled up the meal worm feeder to the top, only to find when I got back two hours later, that it was empty.  There was (at that stage) a fair bit of it on the lawn, but by mid afternoon it was all gone.  We have been "visited" by a small flock of starlings, you see.  There seem to be about 15 in total. They  made a bee-line for the meal worms and now even the lawn is looking reasonably clean.

We were also visited by a bull finch, who seemed very interested in the little creatures in the waterfall.  He insisted on either looking straight at the camera or facing the other way, at no stage did he present himself even slightly side on, but I have included him as my extra (even though its not my best picture) as he's a bit of a rarity in the garden.