November

What is there to be glad about in November?
Here's a brief list:
Ever increasing circles of toadstools in the open pastures and fascinating clusters of fungi in the woods, hundreds of helleborine in the dappled shade of the poplars, hedgerows groaning with haws, charms of magical goldfinches swaying on the thistledown and flocks of flitting yellowhammers, a huge moon on the horizon as I walked the cows in to be milked, berries on the holly, sloes on the blackthorn and playing circusses of jackdaws and rooks, sky-diving, hang-gliding, free-wheeling and generally living-it-up in the evening skies for as long as they possibly can.

I was interested to read on a website called webbcafts that a woman was fined, during the Second World War for 'wasting bread' by feeding it to the birds in Winter. She said she could not bear to see them starve.
How much more appropriate it would be to fine anyone these days for knowingly removing or destroying the wild birds' Winter larder, otherwise known as hedgerows.
Until relatively recently, farmers were paid to remove established hedgerows to make fields larger and they were also paid to plant new ones.
Simultaneously, the demise of many British song birds was being loudly lamented.
I think a good yardstick for judging a new friend would be how much they would happily spend on bird food or how much effort they would devote to protecting the food Nature supplies for them.