Some (very) early signs of Spring

I had a bit of spare time yesterday afternoon............


There was a small flock of Bullfinch feeding on some trees next to the local river.

Pretty early in the year for the buds to appear, it has been a pretty mild winter (again).

This is a male.

This is a female.

Some of the males had pinkish tinges to their breasts, maybe indicating intermediate individuals between different races...............the ones which breed in Japan have grey breasts, these may be from the Asian mainland. Perhaps.

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The light was mostly good and the trees were quite low, plus they were pretty tame..............

They were really ploughing through the cherry blossom buds, hope they leave a few for the spring or the trees will be bare.

I took a lot of similar pictures. As you can see.

There were 7 or 8 of them..............

But I was mainly trying to get shots of the males...........