I’m not one who normally suffers from the winter blues, but this year seems to be the exception.

Maybe it’s because it’s been a long hard winter, or perhaps it’s because I lost my mum, my cat and one of my oldest friends within a few weeks of each other. Who knows? All I know is that unlike previous years I’ve found January and Febuary to be very, very hard work.

We’ve had a few nice days in and among, but generally speaking it’s been cold wet and miserable, and everything is behind.

I have tried my best to look after the wild life in the garden over these cold dark weeks. I’ve already told you about the moorhen, and I saw a hedgehog a couple of nights ago.

Today we had a squirrel on the bird feeder. I have seen him before but never for such a long visit. He was pinching the nuts and burrying them (not very well) in the lawn. In between he ate a few. He is very cute.

I’ve mentioned my little robin friends before. We certainly have 3 who live in the garden. That’s the largest number I’ve seen together at any one time, so I suppose we could have more.

Anyway one of them at least likes to wait for me outside the backdoor and fly down to be fed. I always oblige with a handful of porridge oats.

I noticed the other day that one of them was looking less than handsome. His feathers were a real mess, I don’t know if he’d been in a fight or something.

Well today my little puckered friend came to the birdfeeder at the same time as one of the other robins.

At first I thought there was going to be a fight, but to my surprise the normal robin began to feed the disheveled one. Now I know he can feed himself perfectly well because I’ve seen him do it, but on this occasion he was asking to be fed.

What’s that about then?