Four-and-twenty blackbirds

Ok, not quite four-and-twenty, and not baked in a pie, although the apples that they've been eating could have made a great many pies.  But this morning I counted 15 blackbirds in the garden, mostly eating the cooking apples brought down by the gales, with others heading for the holly tree and its berries and yet more just hanging out round the summerhouse.  The weather did indeed turn cold at the weekend, with a light covering of wet snow on Saturday morning and temperatures down to minus 3 overnight, and the birds suddenly became a lot more interested in the food available in the garden.  I've salvaged a good few apples and stored them in the greenhouse (mostly for feeding to the birds later in the winter), and several stems of hollyberries have been cut (and are also in the greenhouse, as the coolest mouse-proof place for them).  Besides the blackbirds, the fieldfares and redwings are also about and busily stripping the holly, and this afternoon I was scolded by the green woodpecker when I went out - so it's also still around.  We also had a female bullfinch one day, and a family of goldfinches picking over the Big Yellow Thing, whose seeds they're particularly fond of.

Although I haven't yet got round to clearing the summer pots (too many non-gardening things in hand at the moment), the argyranthemums et al seem to have survived the cold.  A little more leaf-clearing has been done, and some desultory tidying up, but the only major gardening achievement this week has been making a start on replanting the gooseberries, which have layered over the years and become very congested.  This was prompted by the discovery of a dead juvenile pigeon under the holly tree and the consequent need to find somewhere deep enough to bury it.  It now has a bit of gooseberry bush on top of it, in a position where I will be able to continue digging up the row without disturbing it.

Back to damp and windy weather again now, a bit milder but very November-ish, and no change in sight for the moment.  At times like this a little Christmas cheer in prospect seems very welcome!