The bird that I see the most of here in Berlin is the blue tit (Blaumeise). These are bright and lovely little birds with yellow bellies and blue little caps and distinctive facial patterns. They are remarkably acrobatic and seem to enjoy twirling around branches, falling and catching themselves, and hopping upside-down along branches, as if gravity would be of no concern if one is just chipper and bright enough. I am always happy to see them on these dark winter days; they fly about in utter defiance of any gloom.

And I am lucky, as nearly every time I look out the window I see at least one of them, and more likely four or five, flitting from tree to tree or zipping up to the balls of food we hang for them from our balcony. These balls have a nice German name, Meisenknödel, but the producers provide an amusing English translation on their packaging: “Fat Balls.” So we call them fat balls.

No one is interested in our fat balls until at least mid-December, likely because what food nature provides is still much better than old seeds packed in saturated vegetable fat and enclosed in neon plastic mesh. But by this time of year the fat balls are very popular, and the torture for our cat, Hamlet, begins. He is desperate to catch and eat the little acrobats and is driven to distraction by their incessant swooping and chirping on the balcony. While they flit around outside he runs from room to room and sill to sill, chirping at them himself and then yelling at us. He can’t understand why we won’t open the door to the balcony and give him access to his pleasures. We are cruel, and find this amusing. But we are hungry too, for distractions from the awful February gloom!