If the snow gets any deeper I'll on be tip toes to avoid sounding falsetto!

Its pretty cold at the moment but, being a stupid birder, I went out in stiff winds and -36 wind chill, it was still bright and I had spent the day looking at a computer screen, so off down the lanes I went.

One good feature of the mass of drifting snow that covered some of the roads was that the local's speeds were kept to the low 140 kph, they even almost paused before pulling around snow ploughs into the oncoming traffic (me), almost!

My main reason for risking life and bodywork was to try to get a good look at the male Snowy Owl that others keep seeing and photographing around St-Clet. This time I was lucky although the photos were not great, I did get a good look as he sat atop a steel hydro pylon, wind buffeted looking for hardy voles.

It was bitterly cold so I took the shots from the van and the bird steadfastly ignored me despite convincing squeaking. It only looked down when I started the van, so I rattled of a few fast shots on auto. In the short space of time that the window was open, I lost the feeling in my fingers and that was either a potato chip or one of my ears that I noticed in the footwell, I must do a count.

Winding back to Sunday and a new Hoary Redpoll was a regular visitor to the feeders. This one is a hornemanni, possibly a female. It was hard to get a photo of it in a natural setting although for redpolls this winter I think a feeder qualifes as a natural setting.

The other bird here is a White-breasted Nuthatch which is pretending to be part of the tree to fool the Cooper's that was hanging around.

Roll on spring.