A tale of fire and ice

 It was a rvery cold morning today, bright and cold with no wind. The lawn was white with first and the car took a it of defrosting before I could get out. I was only going very local, with a first stop to Cassiobury Park for the resident little owl. It was sitting out on its usual tree in gorgeous sunlight. Stupidly though I'd been downloading photos last night and forgot to put the card back in the camera so the only photo I could get was using my phone. The same applied to the stunning mandarin drake on the river. Ah well, you live and learn.

After that rather abortive start I went home and decided to have a walk round the aquadrome instead, which turned out to be a very good choice.The lakes were almost entirely frozen over, meaning the water birds were concentrated on the few open areas or resorting to standing on the ice. 

One such part was right by the waterski hut where large numbers of coot had congregated

It did mean that the available area was crowded and as usual the coots were pretty aggressive to each other. You could study their slightly ridiculous feet when they perched out on the jetty.

This is normally a very popular area for people feeding the birds and a good number of gulls were mooching about though no one was helping them out.

A large flock of siskins were feeding in the tops of the alders near the path. I studied them for a long time trying to find a redpoll in amongst them with no success. 

Land birds otherwise were in short supply, though some sparrows and a robin were perching out in the misty sunshine down by the farm.

The main sailing lake was where most of the waterfowl had gathered, mainly round the edges where their activity had kept a decent-sized patch of open water.

Even some cormorants had been attracted to come and try their luck fishing though I didn't see them catch anything.

In the margins a juvenile grebe was looking pretty fed up with life, not helped by its presumed parents getting a bit amorous and territorial out on the main bit of open water.

In the background here you can see female red-crested pochard. It was the males that really stood out.

Even in the weak slightly misty sunshine their extravagant crests positively shone. When they came out of the shade into the sun they almost caught fire! Often they lurk out of sight here but the ice had forced them to come right next to the path. 

They are not totally wild birds over here. There is a small breeding population which probably originated from escapes out of wildfowl collections. They are also topped up in the Winter with individuals from larger breeding populations in Germany and Spain. Either way they are spectacular ducks. 

A warming cup of tea was very welcome when I got home. The owl and the mandarin were two new year ticks but the stars had to be those red-crested pochards. Really brightened up a cold day.