Freezing

The high pressure that is bringing cold weather to much of Europe caused temperatures to drop to  -18C this morning. There seems little evidence of new arrivals of birds due to the weather although on the garden feeders today were a pair of Coal Tits which are very rare here despite being common in the forests surrounding Oslo. A total of 5 Blackbirds, 2 Fieldfares and a single Robin are managing to find enough natural food in the area although have also taken to apples that I put out. The sparrow flock contains 12 of both House and Tree and easily outnumber the 2 Greenfinches and seemingly also only 2 each of Blue and Great Tit. In previous years we have had much higher numbers of all three of these species and also regular Redpolls which are completely absent from the garden this year. The feeding stations in Maridalen also have far fewer birds than previous winters. Whether this is due to a local population decline or due to the relatively mild winter (until now) I don't know.