Early harvest bounty

The harvest time seems to be coming in early this year.  It’s not even the end of July, yet I’ve been seeing ripe blackberries on brambles for a couple of weeks and here is a photo of ripening and ripe elderberries.  Not so many of the ripe elderberries can be seen because, guess what, the pigeons are straight in picking off anything that is sweet enough to eat.  

Wood pigeons, as seen here, are one of those birds which are always to be seen around and their very ubiquity means we usually overlook them.  Once you do take a look, they suddenly show that they can be quite elegant and striking birds, especially with the splash of iridescent feathers around the neck.  I’ve been after a more interesting photo of one of these birds for a bit.  This one was stretching it’s neck and balancing up, thereby showing it’s neck feathers to good effect, before reaching right over to grab some of the riper berries at the bottom right of the frame.