The holly bears a berry...

Or, in the case of the tree in our front garden, a lorra lorra berries (as Cilla Black might have said). Folklore has it that a bountiful crop of berries is a sign of a hard winter to come and it is certainly chilly this evening if that can be regarded as a portent. There were a couple of birds in the tree just before I took the photo and I suspect it will have been stripped of most of its berries by the time we want to cut some leaf stems for Christmas decorations. The deep green of a holy leaf has to be offset by the crimson red of the berries, so if the birds have eaten them all, that effect is lost. The berries are toxic to humans but birds love them.