It's beginning.....

..... to look a lot like Christmas!

This morning, we have purchased a new Christmas Tree, with lights and baubles, much to my delight and, I suspect, a certain amount of incredulity on Malcolm's part.  It's SO exciting, but I have to restrain my festive cheer for another month. Drat!
Returning to now, the fat-ball drama is being played out regularly at the front of our house.  At this rate, we will be bankrupted by Sparrows within the next six months.

Like a highly trained military outfit, the sparrows perch in the hedgerow opposite, keeping an eye on us and then, in one, full-blown frontal attack, they launch themselves across the road and land en-mass, squabbling and chirping.

Then the 'heavies' arrive in the form of Starlings.  These raucous troops descend with stealthy precision and launch a stabbing attack on the fat-balls sending a shower of small fragments onto the ground like a snow-storm.

It isn't until the Starlings arrive that you get some idea of what 'shock and awe' tactics mean.  They screech at each other and at the Sparrows, destroy the fat-balls with ferocious accuracy, then disappear into the hedgerows again before anyone has the opportunity to fight back.  What a spectacle!