The leafless trees are a great boon and how pretty they have looked, decked first with snow and then with frost. The boon is of course the ease with which we are able to spot birds. During the last week I have seen all three woodpeckers; the striking black, white and red great and lesser; the pretty green and yellow green; the mouse like treecreeper as he repeatedly darts up and flies down the trunk of the silver birch tree; charms of goldfinches and flocks of long tailed tits and of course all of the usual birds.
The food put out for the wildlife disappears rapidly and I entreat you all not to throw scraps away, those crumbs or that piece of fat destined for the bin may be the difference between life and death for some of our feathered friends this weather.
I always boil chicken carcasses down to make soup, during this process the bones become softened and then make fillings for the fox sandwiches, if for some reason I am unable to do this, then I hang the carcass from a tree and the tits cling all over it, gradually picking it clean.
The squirrels seem ravenous, but on watching them one morning, I discovered a fair bit of what they take is not consumed but buried! However, later that evening I watched a fox, who after finishing his food went back and forth across the lawn digging up the food stashed away by the squirrels -- so it is interesting to watch the squirrels carefully bury their food then magpies and jays gather it in the day and foxes do so at night.
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