Famine and Feast

It must truly be winter.

The garden is bare. The last of the dried up blackberries have gone, and most of the leaves from the brambles too. The rose-hips have been consumed. The bird feeder hanging from the fence is, at present, empty. The hanging bag of nuts that we put up in front of the kitchen window Autumn last year is still untouched. Or rather was.

The bag is too near the kitchen window for the little birds it was intended to attract--the blue tits and great tits. They can see into the kitchen, where a cat is likely to be perched on a high shelf staring down imperially or crouched on the draining board chattering away. So the little birds haven't come. Of course, they could just be too stupid, except they manage with the other feeder, although there they must compete with the bigger birds--the robin, blackbirds, greenfinches, starlings, even the odd squirrel.

Well, times must be hard, at least in starling land (which seems roughly to equate with our apple tree where a small flock roosts, nesting in our roof, swearing volubly and interminably if we dare use the back garden). A starling is swinging from the old nuts in the window, precariously: it's too big and not "designed" for that feeding position. A cat, ignored, crouches on the draining board (drat, the washing up's still draining there!). Well, done starling, the ravens salute you.

Time to make an effort to look after our wildlife.