Tit Day and a new block

Today was an amazing bird watching day. All last week we had very low temperatures, down to -29.5C/-21F, and the birds stayed in the woods, not wasting any energy in flying and finding food. Now the temperature is up in -3C/+26F, and they spend a long time on the feeder. New friends arrived too, like the Crested Tit:

Here you can have a closer look on the coiffure:

We hadn't seen Crested Tits in over two years.

The Blue Tit thought of making an early reservation for this house, where the Great Tit lived last Summer:

Then came the Willow Tit, for the first time this year. We keep a record of our first sight of all the birds we can see in or from our garden.

Here he is approaching the sunflower seed while the Blue Tit sits on the roof of the feeder, ready to defend his right to the seeds. The Blue Tit can chase away any number of other birds when he comes to get some food.

Naturally there was also the Great Tit, our most numerous tit. He likes peanuts too.

I didn't get a picture of the little Coal Tit, who returned in January after several years of absence. The trees in the woods around us have grown so much that many species are coming back. They don't like too open places where they can be caught by Owls or Falcons. The Coal Tit only came once to the feeder today. To complete the series of Tits, Mr. K saw a flock of Long-tailed Tits high in the birch tree on his way out, but they flew away before I had the camera ready.

On the crafty front I have been making some crumble work but not enough to show any progress, and I have started the Block 2 of Scandinavian Christmas:

The appliqué is done and I have started stitching the reindeer's antlers. I had the perfect dotty fabric for the mushrooms so I don't need to stitch any white dots.