bird watching

There are a lamentable number of birds in the Asian Pear just outside the bedroom window - lamentable, because the winds blew off all the leaves - some lingering and autumnal, others still green - leaving just the tender green buds of new foliage, and the first blossoms of the spring.  It's so unusual for it to look like this that it's impossible to know whether the usual stunning spring bloom will happen, or not.  But Gramsci doesn't mind - all the better for finch-spotting.