Icicles

After a very cold start to the day, the sun soon started to melt some of the snow on the roof and icicles started to form and grow throughout the day.  The longest of these reached two foot by this evening (fortunately they are not in a position where they could fall on anyone).

Most of the snow is still with us and will be for a while but by this evening, the roads were much clearer and dry in places.

The bird feeders were monopolised for much of the day by a noisy group of starlings but at one point they were joined by two other birds that we have not seen before.

This is a Red-Winged Blackbird and when he flew he had a bright patch of red and yellow on each wing.

The other newcomer, which I didn't manage to photograph today, is a cuckoo-type bird called a Brown-Headed Cowbird.  He was rather like a smaller version of a Grackle.  According to the bird book, these Cowbirds lay 25- 50 eggs per season in the nests of other, smaller birds and hence are considered to be pests, especially as they occur in large numbers.