Longer days-springs coming

The last couple of days have been beautiful although yesterday the breeze had some bite and today its gone very cold again, I went to the private land yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours, I have been packing up around 4-4.15 but yesterday it was 4.45 before the feeder went into the shade and i left, The days are defiantly getting longer and although winter is still clinging on its days are numbered , I think by the time i get back from Japan it will be very warm here, I watched a red tailed hawk flying into the nearby forest with nesting material yesterday so thats a good sign that breeding season is coming, There were plenty of birds at the feeding station yesterday, I only took the D7000 and 600 along with the 1.4x as i wanted some chickadee and tufted titmouse images that were fill frame, When the bigger birds arrived like the cardinals and woodpeckers i would quickly take the extender off and get some shots, I had a small group of 5 or 6 cardinals perched close together in the tree next to my hide and with the blue sky behind them they looked like Christmas tree ornaments, I never tire of shooting cardinals as they are such a pretty bird and if you are lucky you can catch them with their crests raised, They then remind me of a small Cockatoo, The hairy woodpecker arrived and stayed some some time feeding on the 'pecker' branch but the Red Bellied Woodpecker only came to feed twice and then only on the seed table so i didn't bother to shoot, The light was good although a touch harsh when i arrived but as the sun started to dip everything looked great, Another bird that i wanted to get better shots of was the Carolina Wren and this session it showed a couple of times but showed very nicely, Staying in one spot for some time before moving off, Just before the end of the session it landed on a tree to my right and stayed for 3 or 4 minutes, I could just manage to get the lens on it without up rooting the hide

Dave