From the frozen forest to the windswept west ...

With the thermometer reading -8 C but with the bright sunshine and a clear blue sky it was magical in the Border Forest ... birds were inevitably rather scarce but the occasional Coal Tit called and flitted about the conifer branches ...

A small flock of six passerines moved through the low scrub and seemingly disappeared into the low vegetation ... then one would occasionally show and reveal itself as a Reed Bunting ...

 

After several days when the temperature rarely if ever reached zero Talkin Tarn was almost completely ice-bound but around 2000 gulls occupied a small patch of open water ... mainly Black-headed Gulls but with smaller numbers of Common Gulls and only a handful of Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls ... 

As the temperatures eased the wind picked up and at Workington Harbour on a low tide the gulls and Cormorants kept off the jetties and stayed on the rocky shore ... a juvenile Glaucous Gull which had been around the area for a little while was way out on the rocks on the north side ...

... it kept busy, getting up to fly around and joining a feeding frenzy among the other large gulls from time to time ...

... a great looking bird with its pink legs and bill-base ...