First frost...

Last winter we only had (that I can recall) 3 frosts, to say the winter weather never really arrived wouldn't be far off the mark. This morning's frost, therefore, was very welcome.

At home, a flock of Fieldfares passed over and the feeders were very busy, with the small garden birds refuelling after losing body heat overnight. Here at Feathers, the Starlings are gathering in numbers as European birds join our resident population to form large flocks, or murmurations, as they are properly known! Song Thrushes and Mistle Thrushes (pictured below) are becoming a more regular sighting, especially the latter, with the odd small group of Redwings passing over but not yet staying. A relative rarity for us is the Coal Tit, though this little beauty has now started turning up regularly outside the shop. The idea of this blog is to keep better records of things like this, so it will be interested to see if the same thing happens next year.

As we enter November, Christmas ads start appearing on our screens and the much anticipated one in recent years has been the John Lewis advert. This years has lived up to the reputation, featuring #MontyThePenguin, a (very realistic) CGI Adelie Penguin:

Many of you may remember these little penguins from Frozen Planeta few years back, stealing stones from other Adelie Penguin's nests!

Don't forget our Winter Sale is now on, most of our range of binoculars have something off and with Christmas 7 weeks away now, now's the time to shop!