Category: David

This little grebe paused to give its feathers a good cleaning after swimming in convoy with a couple of mallards (below).

This magpie’s haughty retreat gives a view of the rich iridescence of feathers which normally appear black.

A robin uses one bird feeder as a perch for its approach to the other feeder.

Thanks to reliable bird feeders, this male blackbird has kept well fed through the recent hard spell.

A member of the thrush family which flies south to Britain for the easier living in the winter.

Fieldfares normally come into urban areas only when conditions get harsh – here to feast on a rotting apple left out for birds. Understandably, the bird was more concerned with eating than with showing itself off at a good angle.

This bracket was growing on a fallen tree trunk, at an angle which showed that the fruiting bodies grew only after the tree had fallen.

The long neck is capable of the most complex contortions.

Even before the present big freeze, most of the berries left were as inedible as this rosehip.

Urban birds are going to be even more dependent than ever on food put out in feeders and on bird tables.

The current big freeze makes wild animals and birds more desperate in their seach for food.

The snow also means they leave more signs where they have been.

Not one of the most elegant of duck species. This individual and its mate seemed keen to use a notice board as a look-out post.

A couple more examples of puffball species.

The white body feathers of these pochards are covered in a series of darker squiggles, called vermiculations to mark their supposed resemblance to worms.