Feb 5 2012- Moscow

A short walk up the road and through the snowed up park found a few birds and a couple of surprises. Amongst the house sparrows were a number of tree sparrow. The former looking very dingy and grimy, the latter looking smart and dapper so it can't be soiling, maybe there a darker sub species of passer domesticus here. A couple of Blue Tit looked 'normal' but the great tit looked grubby too. A single fieldfare fed on some tree fruit and looked a little odd by itself (I'd seen a couple of large-thrush flocks from my window which were also probably this species).
It's still a little strange seeing Hooded Crow dossing around and relatively tame (as opposed to Scotland's wild and distant birds) but there were a number around the park. High over Moscow City a Hoodie was watched aggressively mobbing an Accipiter of approximately equal size.
A small flock of mallard take advantage of the ice breaking operation on the river