Common Redpolls

I drove over to Hopkinton State Park this morning to watch the sun rise and to see what birds may or may not be around.  It was a balmy 8 degrees.   The sunrise was not spectacular; but, as you can see from this photo, the cold temperatures are icing the lake up.  

I heard a strange noise when I was taking this photo, and thought it was the ice moving on the lake.  Later, I discovered it was an ice fisherman pounding stakes through the ice.  He was about 15 feet off the shore by the first parking lot.

I noticed three Common Redpolls in a tree just behind the ice fisherman's pickup truck, so I stopped there, too.  I walked around the piles of kayaks to get closer to the birds as they fed on the catkins of the birch trees.  I wonder why there are so few today.....where have the others gone?