Black Grouse...

...female in the birch tree next to our house.
Day 2 of bird blips after my bird feeder pictures yesterday.
A very still day but cold (-18°C) this morning when I took the picture. There were 4 birds in the flock, (two of them in the extra) wandering up and down these birch twigs steadily eating something (seeds? buds?). I imagine it takes a lot of seeds to keep such a large bird warm, but they also seem to be very well insulated, even the legs are hairy.
We don't see these black grouse so often, not even every year, but between 4 and 10 of them have been hanging around in the local birches for the last few days - all females. The males are much more colourful and the English give different folk-names to the male and female - blackcock and greyhen.
We are expecting stormy weather tomorrow with lots of snow (20cm) and high winds, which means deeper snow drifts. The usual advice has come to stay home unless your journey is absolutely necessary. To avoid the need to drive tomorrow we took a quick trip to the shops today. I've also moved an extra box of firewood into the cellar, and cleared some frozen clumps of icy snow from the veranda roof at Betty's. For us 20 cm of snow is no bother but I know predictions of how much precipitation is coming are not so reliable, so better safe than sorry!
I guess the storm is going to be a tough time for the birds too but the black grouse often go to ground (literally) in a big snowfall and shelter under some roots or similar, letting the snow bury them.
I shall try to keep the bird feeders full for the smaller birds.
The camera has once again come into use, superior to the iPhone for getting telephoto pictures.