It's a damp and dreary day today, after the couple of dry, sunny, properly cold days we have just had. I hope that this isn't going to end up as a non-existent winter, following on from 2011's peculiar spring/summer/autumn sequence. The garden does not know which way to turn. There were some daffodils out last week near Romsey Abbey, and I have seen a Forsythia in flower already - as well as snowdrops and crocuses.
I did have that wonderful 'sense' of spring on 3rd January, and a couple of times since (like Mole in 'Wind in the Willows'): the slightest bit of additional tea-time light in the sky on a clear day, the hint of extra vigour and volume in the birds' songs. Let's hope too that the winter doesn't come some time in March and set everything back at the start of the season...
Birds have definitely reacted to the past couple of cold days, and numbers in the garden have increased significantly: blue tits, great tits, robins, dunnocks, long-tailed tits, blackbirds - all present and much more active and visible than throughout the latter part of last year. Still no redwings though, in spite of the ample supply of apples - some still on the tree, and lots on the ground.