The snow has fallen and kept falling. The cats are going stir crazy, kept sane only by the many visitors to the bird feeder.

As well as the usual blue tits, we’re seeing a regular nuthatch pair, and perhaps saddest of all a blackbird that keeps trying and failing to hop across to the caged feeder.

He gets relegated, along with the London pigeons to the ground beneath the feeder but he’s not the only one lurking around.

Maybe a nocturnal hunt for scraps beneath the feeders explains away the success of the cats bringing home mice. It’s not as if these cats are particularly clever or even sneaky.

And whilst the fox has nothing to fear from the cats, the blackbird is altogether more vulnerable, to both cats and fox.

Much safer up in the trees away from the predators.