And you thought it was the fieldfares...

Because we feed the smaller birds, there is inevitably the occasional visit from pigeons who go beneath the feeder, hoovering up all the dropped seed. That's ok... if they were rarer we would be twitching all over the pretty plumage of the feral pigeon! But I thought the holly berries at least were the sole provenance of the smaller and medium sized birds... nah.

Looking out of my study window, the rain has been a constant since dawn, and the winds continue to thrash the trees. But that's not stopping this fat fellow. Delicately flopping from overloaded branch to overloaded branch, not a berry is dropped. 

We watch this holly tree for the weather forecast it provides. It holds onto the berries right up until the week before the freeze. Then it is stripped. We have experienced the mildest of winters thus far; wet and miserable but with temperatures often well into double figures (ºC). At the weekend that is forecast to change drastically, and the pigeon clearly agrees...

Poor Janet sadly remains barking... not mad, exactly, but nonetheless it is a cough that cannot be ignored.