It is hard to be a bird during winter

Snow on branches, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Sunlight, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Bird house, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Bird house, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

It is a wonder that so many birds survive the Finnish winter, all the snow and temperature at -20 °C or less. But they do, clever creatures. (And I guess they are equipped with an extremely good insulation.)

By the way, Finnish researcher Tiina Pääkkönen has concluded that long-time exposure to cold decreases the reasoning capability of humans. This happens because the body needs the energy elsewhere than in the brain. Also, the effects can be long-lasting.

In any case, our family exposed ourselves to the cold today. It was a bright day once again, although the sun was low on the horizon. Here are some photographs taken today.

I calculated some statistics about this blog. I started it in the middle of 2008. That year there were at average 118 visits and 180 page views per day. In 2009, these numbers were 103 and 143. So, the blog has been going downhill in that sense. On the other hand, more of the visitors have come here before. In 2008, only 32 % were repeat visitors. In 2009, this rose to over 40 %.

So, thanks for coming here (for whatever reason), and especially thanks for all the comments and other feedback.