Every last scrap

The birds have been stripping the berries off this bush for the last couple of weeks. Only the last few left now, buried deep in the branches amongst the long, wicked thorns but every calorie counts in the annual struggle for survival, particularly with spring so long delayed, so the birds burrow in. The scavenging population around this car park includes herring gulls, black backed gulls and even some black headed gulls that have chosen to over winter here rather than follow the flock south - large birds to be pushing themselves in amongst the spiked cage of the bush's heart but they do. Deep in the bush this little arrangement caught my eye, like a crime scene littered with clues; the mark of the sharp beak upon the punctured, blood red berries and the breast feather, plucked out by the stabbing thorns as the branches' prisoner tore himself free.