Apple-lover

Knowing that the thaw was likely to set in today, I had one more long, snowy walk this morning. The sky was dull and misty, and although it was very peaceful walking in the powdery snow, the landscape seemed quite drained of colour or definition. 

On my way out I'd spotted a fieldfare in a nearby bush, that then flew away and, surprisingly, landed on a windowsill where some food had been scattered. This is very unusual behaviour for these normally shy and wary winter thrushes.

On my way back, rather bizarrely, I found a solitary perfect apple on a wall at the end of our road which I picked up and took home. Rather than eating it, I chopped it into four and put it on the patio. In less than half-an-hour four fieldfares had appeared, but this one was by far the boldest and gamely fought off any other bird who seemed to be approaching his fruit. I scattered some more apples segments, hoping that there would be enough to share, but he just defended all of them. I may have to go and buy more apples tomorrow!