This is something I didn't expect.....

......to have to buy this winter.....a bag of apples.....

....for the blackbirds would you believe.....

...the garden is bare...

...after only a few short days of the cold.

The birds are hanging around, pecking desolately at the few rotten skins left over, I've even given them all the rotten apples out of the compost bins, but they were gone almost as soon as they hit the ground.  Even the dog is blameless, for once, although he eats most bird food, he draws the line at cooking apples, but he will wee on them, and even that hasn't stopped the hungry birds.

So it's off to Lidl we will go...