Great Spotted Woodpecker

One of the joys of having a garden which is in a neighbourhood where there are lots of trees, is the variety of birds which are frequent visitors. 
Some of these build their nests each spring in the hedges, or in various climbing wall shrubs. 
We have a pair of blackbirds in the climbing hydrangea alongside the robins. 
The hedge sparrows are where you would expect them to be, and in the Liquid Amber maple at the top of the garden a pair of woodpigeons build a nest annually. 
I was fascinated to watch them one day last year, feeding their young. I did not know then that they feed them on crop-"milk" , or squabs. This is a substance rich in fats and and not too dissimilar to mammalian milk, and produced in the crop which is a pouch situated in the throat. The whole process looked incredibly difficult to me! It looked as if the parent was being attacked by it's chick!! 
Today I managed to capture a couple of photos of the Great Spotted Woodpecker as he was on the fat balls. 
I had to take it through the windowpane of our backdoor in the kitchen.
      It looks a little grainy, but I was pleased all the same. 
A thaw has set in finally, and everything is either dripping with melting snow, or extremely slushy underfoot.
     The biting arctic wind has abated and we've had a little glimmer of misty sunshine earlier................dare we hope that it will gradually feel more like the true beginning of Spring.............I'm holding my breath!