Seewinkel in Winter's icy grip

I think it is very likely that I was the only person counting birds in the frozen Seewinkel National Park on the Austria-Hungary border on a weekday, just four days before the Winter Solstice!  The bird species diversity there in winter is a tiny fraction of that in summer; however, every biological record is valuable, and there are always exciting things to see. I could certainly  not have watched three See Eagles feasting on a dead swan if I had stayed at home!

Balls of mistletoe are starkly visible on the denuded deciduous trees

 

 Even the Einserkanal starts to freeze over and the Andau Bridge 

looks very different now to how it did during my last visit

Lake Neusiedl is frozen over...

...while the cycle track at Sandeck is more like a skating rink!
The watchtower is a relic of the Cold war

A pair of Hooded crows find something to eat during a snow flurry...

...but the sun is trying hard to show itself through the snow clouds

On a winter afternoon the setting sun illuminates the inflorescences 

of reeds in the Seewinkel National Park