It is bitterly cold out there today. Only -1 up to 2°C, so not as cold as it was leading up to Christmas – but the wind is biting.There’s a thick layer of ice on my wheelbarrow which filled up with water a little while a go. Spring seems so far off… so I was very pleased to snap some Spring like images this afternoon. They are a little dull as I arrived home from work after the sun had hidden itself again – but at least it was still light .
Snowdrops
Aconites
Hazel catkins
Boadicea's Chariot 
Nice pic’s. Nothing going on where I live, just a huge amount of frost damage!
Lovely Pseu, spring is somewhere out there 🙂
Roll on Spring before the Gulf Stream packs in, and leaves us in a new Ice Age!
We were there a week or so before you with the snowdrops appearing Pseu, but I am not sure there are as many flowers out. Too dark to check now, so I’ll have a look on my morning stroll tomorrow – this morning I was distracted by a large grey heron taking off followed by a couple of mallards. I had my camera set to Sports Action mode so was able to catch them in flight…
Lovely shots, CWJ.
Mine are a little dark, but I’ll try again soon on a brighter day.
We have had a bit of a warm spell, snowdrops, viburnum, jasmine are all flowering, daffs are in full bud but the rain just will not stop. Never seen such a long wet winter and with the early cold in Nov we have lost a lot of plants, pieris, ceanothus and azaleas, all the good stuff!
Really rather aggravating and will need a fair bit of replanting in the spring.
No pics camera on the blink, I dropped it!
We wish, snowed yesterday, snowing today, who knows,may snow tomorrow.
Looking from the window in the last few minutes.
The only patch of colour in the whole yard.
Nice pics, LW. 😆
What is that red bird, LW?
Bearsy : Re. site templates, thank you. I am still playing and always finding something about the template I choose that I do not like or will never use. Seeking perfection in a world of blemishes perhaps.
Hello Pseu: It’s a male Red Cardinal, very common here, I’ll see if I can catch a pair together when the sun is out (if ever), they really jump out of the background then.
Oh my god, LW, a red cardinal. First saw one in my Birds of the World when I was 8. And now there’s a photograph of one in your garden!! Peachy!! That’s on my list of “must see” birds including the golden oriole and a hoopoe. Heavenly-looking spot and I love the tones in the photo – like a watercolour using only Prussian Blue.
Pseu, you beat me to it! Lovely images. I’ve got a clump of snowdrops in flower but the light’s been all wrong to take any decent pics. I’m so pleased we’ve nearly got January over with. I’m just wondering when I’ll see the daffs I planted in, ahem, early December…
Super action shots of your bird visitors, CWJ. Herons are so slim and still when they are at rest but in flight, that wingspan is vast.
There are some very, very good photographers on The Chariot. LW’s particularly make me feel chilly just looking at them.
OZ
Hello Janh: I cannot help you with the Golden Oriole or the Hoopoe, but this guy is a visitor to us in the summer, and he is as handsome as he looks here.
Baltimore Oriole
beautiful plumage.
I used to have cardinals and blue jays together in Memphis in a tulip tree, liriodendrum tulipifera, (not magnolia) which has yellow flowers. The red, blue and yellow were seriously glorious technicolour.
nowhere near such colour here except in the humming birds and the navy blue herons, look like they have built in school uniforms!
Stunning bird, LW – something else good from Baltimore apart from The Wire 🙂
Hi Tina – I know tulip trees! Splendid. I had no idea there were humming birds so far north!
Thanks, Nym.
I see you are making good use of your new camera.
Lovely photographs. 🙂