Holly

One winter day a blackbird was having a munch on some holly berries in our garden and chasing off any others. Then a fieldfare flew in and started eating them. Blackbird tried to see fieldfare off but every minute some more of fieldfare's pals arrived. After about the tenth one, blackbird retired to a hedge and watched as the flock of fieldfares, stripped the tree of berries in one afternoon! I felt sorry for the blackbird but the fieldfares had probably flown a long way and it was very cold. They flew off again and we made sure the blackbird got mealworms regularly for the remainder of the winter.

That's lovely Baggy! We get fieldfares when the weather is realy cold, and redwings with them.

My daughter has got a lot of large holly bushes round her garden. The birds don't touch them. Outer London. I don't think there are enough birds left round there. Except for those parakeet things.

Do either of you two (ronald and J) take part in the British Trust for Ornithology Garden BirdWatch? I've been doing it for twelve years and it's dead easy as well as fascinating when you get the quarterly reports.

Check out this if you're interested: www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/gbw

Any others reading this, they especially need more people to take part in Scotland!

I wonder if that's the same one as we used to do when my son was at school. He's 30 now so it would have been about fifteen years ago. It was an RSPB one. We joined him up to their YOC (young ornithologists club). He used to get a quarterly magazine. My dh used to help take the local group of kids out on early morning bird walks. (I stayed tucked up in bed of course .