EACH morning, I put the birds' breakfast out. Diced value, wholemeal bread, soaked in water, with diced value Coxes, sunflower hearts, peanuts and fat balls.

Three water containers are cleaned and replenished ready for six to a dozen coloured doves, two pigeons, a regular group of starlings with a lookout, a couple of magpies, about a dozen blackbirds, countless spuggies, one or two robins, a thrush, three blue-tits and a coal-tit, occasional wren, chaffinch and greenfinch and several dunnocks.

A sparrowhawk has been making regular visits for several years, and leaves a tidy pile of assorted feathers.

The snowdrops are showing, the strenuous business of courtship is in swing and, for the last few mornings, a dunnock in song has serenaded me from a small tree outside the back door as I serve up breakfast.

I chat to him and he responds in harmony while several of the others chirp a backing.

It's a lovely life, but don't tell Brown.

George Appleby, Leighton Croft, Clifton, York.