THE HOLLY AND THE IVY

Winter has finally arrived, morning frosts, cold winds and shorter days, the extended mild Autumn has been beneficial to many species after the cold wet summer. Our ivy flowers were rattling with bees of all types and numerous wasp species and hornets have made the season,very lively indeed as they stored away the rich pollen for winter use or hunted for sleeping moths. Now the same ivy is thick with ripening berries ranging in colour from green to black. Ivy berries are almost always the last to be eaten and are vital to blackbirds and thrushes as they provide rich pickings when all the other berries are gone. Ivy only flowers and fruits when mature and the heady scent of its flowers are for me one of the delights of the season. It is a great pity that we are loosing so much adult ivy due to the (neat and tidy )attitude of some local authorities

The unduly mild weather has meant that the birds have not needed the berries yet ,there being still plenty of bugs about and of course no frost means that thrushes and blackbirds can still feast upon worms while the ground is soft. This has meant that there is plenty of berried holly about, quite unusual at Christmas in this neck of the woods and the crop this year has been a heavy one.

In my garden the Pyracanthas are smothered in red and yellow and orange berries, again this is most unusual as normally the blackbirds strip them as soon as they ripen. I have enjoyed having them around a little longer this year, but I noticed yesterday a few bare stalks here and there.

Honeysuckle berries red and juicy and rose hips too still deck the hedgerows in quantities much larger than usual, there would have been more but for my own inroads in to the harvest, rose hip jelly is a favourite with my family. Along with the vegetables and cultivated fruits in our kitchen garden we surround the perimeter with wild roses, hazels, blackberries,elders and even nettles, these provide both my family and the wildlife in the area with a valuable food resource:even dandelion leaves are good to eat,particularly in the spring time and nettles make great beer.

This has been a bumper year for fruits and nuts of all kinds,I have never seen so much beech mast and for several weeks acorns showered down in the lane, bouncing of car roofs and peoples head. The squirrels and the jays had a field day.

Squirrels are frequent visitors to our bird feeders but for several weeks the year they were absent , and so few blackbirds were seen that I asked around to see if others had noticed they were missing but all is well, this very afternoon a fine male bird appeared in the garden helping himself to the sultanas on one of the feeding stations.

With the Christmas holiday just around the corner it is lovely to see the holly bright with berries although I suspect that a few more sharp frosts will turn the birds attention to this bounty. We have a tradition in our family carried through many generations, on Christmas day our garden birds get a special breakfast a tree decorated with strings of peanuts in there shells, bacon rinds and toast crusts as well as the usual bid food. We decorate the tree late on Christmas eve so that the food is there for the morning safe from foxes, an early meal.

Later when we have opened our gifts we put out more food but the birds Christmas tree has delighted many generations of small children in my family and still does.

The old Christmas carol tells us that of all the trees that are in the wood it is the holly which bears the crown but I believe that it is the ivy which provides the most in beauty and in its abundance of flowers and fruit, not forgetting the good shelter it gives to small birds and hibernating insects. So lets hear it for the ivy.