Robin and friends in the back garden

dunnock in the cane leaves

Great tit,

Magpie in flight

The blue tit in the coconot filled with sunflower seed,,

wood pigeon

Squirrel waiting to get at the feeder

Female blackbird

song thrush

I am sure I can see a bird,

Sylvester in his watch tower

20th December in Newtown

It will be my first Xmas in Wales for 9years the Last Eight I spent in Luxor Egypt.

The Shaggy ink cap mushrooms are still out the have serviced two nights of frost -5

Mushrooms still growing in the garden

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A Lone rook guarding the town's Dolerw park car park

Te path from the police station down towards the river is very slippery  with all the leaves rotting but  to see nature one must walk on natures path its two dark even on a sunny day to take good photos under the canopy of the trees  there are lots of birds  squirrels  and always a few mushrooms growing here.

the river is quite high today   so no usual mirror image photo's

the view from our 3rd floor bedroom the first snow  falls on the Mochdre Hills. 

makes one wonder where bubbles come from in the ice  this is ice from the bird bath

still the odd bug about

A starling eating the remains of an apple.

one of the dozen blue tits  on the feeder

here  you can see the tinder fungi  that looks like a horses hoof  hanging from a branch of the  Willow tree there are several fungi on this one tree,

two forms of lichen on a dead branch.

The dunnock one of 4 in the garden always feeds on the ground takes the spill of the tits on the feeders

another hungry mouth on the feeders.

Long-tailed tit,Aegithalos caudatus,

First time I have seen the long-tailed tits 

Description

The Long-tailed Tit is an adorable, small, fluffy pinkish bird.

The shoulders and underparts are pinkish. The head has a white crown with black marks above the eyes and into the nape. They have red eye rings and a very small black bill. The black and white tail is very long, over half the length of the bird and the longest tail of any British bird in proportion to its body. The legs are black-brown.

Juveniles lack pink and have grey-black cheeks.

Long-tailed tits are not really members of the Tit family but of the Aegithalidae family.

Feeding

They feed mostly on insects and their larvae, and spiders, but also on berries.

Increasingly, Long-tailed Tits are feeding from peanut feeders and suet cake in gardens.

These came in fed for a few minutes and left.

Male Blackbird we have about twelve birds  feeding on the apples and berries in our garden at this time of year,

Usually this grey squirrel is in hibernation at this time of year. but its so mild with only two mornings of frost in the past month. here she has found the corn seeds the tits do not want.

The siamese hates being cold  so cuddles up to the main coon for warmth  and of course has to be groomed first.