Well, miracles never cease, and the sun “rose” over clear skies in Delft this “morning”. I use scare quotes because the sun only breached the horizon at 8:37am and only reaches 18° above the horizon by noon. It will set again at 5:10pm. I think I’ve only seen the sun one other day since I’ve been back.
Anyway, I took advantage of the rare occasion and set out to see who else might be up and about. I was quite happy to find this surprisingly-obliging female Eurasian blackbird hunting up some berries for breakfast and appearing to be as shocked by the change in the weather as I was. They are usually quite shy, and I’ve only managed a couple other pictures of them since June.
There were also plenty of Eurasian blue tits flitting from branch to branch.
And great tits, too.
We’ve seen tree creepers here once or twice before, but I continue to struggle with getting a good portrait. This is the short-toed treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla), I believe, and it’s a close cousin to the brown creepers (Certhia americana) we see in Estabrook.
There were also plenty of common wood-pigeons around,
A few carrion crows,
And dozens of noisy Eurasian jackdaws.
I also saw but failed to capture on film today Eurasian robins, Eurasian wrens, a great spotted woodpecker, rose-ringed parakeets, Eurasian magpies, a song thrush, and a couple of redwings.
There were plenty of water birds, too, but let me save those for tomorrow in case the sun goes back into hiding.
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 
This morning we saw the guy with his bag and bucket of birdseed near the pond. He was whistling for the birds and had his camera. We walked to Locust on the west side of the river and back on the east side. The mud was just frozen enough. Lots of people fishing.
Carrie & Zi
Non illegitimi carborundum
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