Finches feeding

It was very cold when I went to refill the bird feeders this afternoon. I keep their food supplies in the garden cabin we built on the lower patio and was pleased to find the new oil heater was keeping it snug.

Before going outside I'd seen a woodpecker intently devouring lots of the suet pellets so I took my camera with me to the cabin. Normally I shoot pictures through the open window, but it was too cold today. So I sat inside near to one of the double-glazed window and waited.

No woodpeckers came but I was treated to displays of aerobatics from a host of tits, two blackcaps, a nuthatch several bullfinches and these goldfinches. It was very dark with a thick mist hanging over the adjacent hilltops and flowing down the hillsides. I can spend a long time just watching the brids and on a day when I didn't move far they are a good emergency blip.

I've added an 'Extra photo' of a nuthatch which grabbed a suet pellet from the feeder and turned it in several juggles with its beak before slowly swallowing it whole!