Winter day

There is something about winter that I like. Grey skies are depressing to many, but the beauty is there if you look. A life without the seasons would be strange and a little lifeless I think. I took these photographs yesterday, Friday 11th January. There had been rain and now a slight drizzle was falling, dulling the sound of trains over the Ouseburn bridges and cars on Warwick Street. As usual all the pedestrians and cycle traffic was concentrated on the tarmac route carrying students to and from their digs in Heaton and the University campus' beyond Shieldfield. Few birds seen on my stroll. A Dunnock Prunella modularis at my feet, subtle coloured and beautiful like the day; a bright and assertive male Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs, many gulls, mostly Blacked Headed Larus ridibundus and a few Common Larus canus. None of the larger Herring gulls Larus argentatus land for some reason, content to cruise overhead. No crows Corvus spp. strangely. The Redwings Turdus musicus are about still, though in pairs or singles.