A flock of local Lesser Redpolls

The coldest morning of the year so far, I take a walk around my patch. Lesser Redpolls are a rare winter visitor in the city, and it's hard to predict where to find them but my local patch has been quite reliable every year and cold weather pushes them south. Today I encountered a small flock quietly feeding on catkins in some small birches in the cemetery. There were at least five, one of them, a male. They allowed me to approach and watch them hanging from the thinnest branches, holding a birch catkin against the branch with a foot while feeding from it so that they can extract the seeds more efficiently.

Adult male Lesser Redpoll.

Here you can see how they hold catkins while they feed.

A female/immature feeding.

A view of the flock. From a distance, very hard to see!

They kept feeding, until a sudden Blackbird alarm flushed them all but one. The lone individual called, and left flying towards the flock.