It is still not too late to make a Good Resolution for 2001. At the end of December, I watched redwings foraging among snow-covered leaves that we had failed to rake up during the wet autumn. In January a pair of blue tits were feeding upon insects lurking in the dead Michaelmas daisies not cut back when the garden was a quagmire. Harvest mice have declined because neatly clipped hedges no longer produce berries. Why? The blossom- bearing twigs have been shorn off during the winter!

So let's all make a Good Resolution to be less neat and tidy, to help our wildlife, especially the small creatures that are more vulnerable during the harsher months of the year. We can help them, too, during the coldest weeks, by putting out food. This year we put out mixed seed and peanuts in feeders, and cubes of bread on the bird-table. The most popular were the mixed seeds, particularly sunflower seeds. Partakers included all members of the tit family, green finches and chaffinches, robins and nuthatches, to mention just a few.

Now February's snowdrops remind us that better days are on the way for us all.

Sue Netherton