Snow, snow, glorious snow! (and a little robin)

The first snow this winter came quite as a surprise as there was no snow forecast for Wallingford until Saturday evening. When I opened the curtains on Sunday morning everything was white outside and it was snowing heavily. No surprise I ate my breakfast as quickly as possible and was soon off to the allotment to enjoy the snow before everyone else got out of bed.

On the allotment all was silent and white with the snow still coming down heavily. Only the birds were active in the snow searching for food. The suet block I put out for them was well in demand with blue and great tits and a little robin fighting over the food.

The robin is normally invisible in summer, looking after his own business, but as soon as it gets cold he is following me around everywhere on the allotment, waiting for me to disturb the soil and uncover some worms or larvae for him.
Below are some pictures of my allotment in the snow and the little robin.

Teasel seed heads look good even when covered in snow (below).

Here the robin is sheltering in a nearby shed on another plot (below).

The last of the Rudbeckia nitida flowers, now covered in snow (below).

As there was nothing else to do on the allotment apart from making sure the birds have enough food I thought it might be a funny idea to build a snow rat. I had built one several years ago but as we don`t get snow every winter I could not miss out on this opportunity. Here is the result (it is supposed to be a dumbo rat, not an elephant):

My next blog will be filled with frozen seed heads and sparkling grasses. Luckily I took lots of pictures on Saturday when it was very frosty and sunny as with all the wet snow lots of seed heads have broken and grasses are flat on the ground.