Thursday dawned with pre-work trip into Oxford city to follow up a report from Adam Hartley of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in the University Parks. It was a bitterly cold morning, cold enough to freeze the lake in the park and for ice to form on the River Cherwell, above. 
It was still well below zero when I climbed the Rainbow Bridge, perhaps too cold to encourage a small woodpecker to drum. I spent the next 45 minutes checking riverside trees on both sides of the river and listening out for calls or drumming. I found a Great Spotted Woodpecker drumming and excavating a hole, but there was no sound nor sight of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.
Much more obvious were the pair of Ring-necked Parakeets that have taken up residence in the line of trees on the other side of Rainbow Bridge, where the footpath heads north-east towards the end of Edgeway Road. 
With time running out and my fingers beginning to seize up in the cold, I called into Christchurch College on my way to work:
A Black Redstart, a scarce bird in the county, has been wintering here. This morning it spent its time on the bare branches of the Virginia Creeper on the front of the college, below:
It was perfectly camouflaged, grey plumage against the grey of the branches and the full sun brought the temperature up nicely too. 
It seems incredible that there is enough insectiverous life on the outside of an Oxford College to support a bird through the winter. But throughout the time I watched it fed constantly, dashing up to take spiders from under the student’s window-ledges, flashing the pale orange tail that gives it it’s name:
I quite enjoyed some city centre birding, especially with Oxford looking stunning on a clear winters morning.
Fantastic that there might be LSW in the Parks. I saw my first there near the rainbow bridge way back in the 90s but they were then absent for at least a decade.