The first-light chorus of blackbirds is particularly welcome these grey, cold mornings, when it feels as if February has crept back. Before the village is fully awake, they stand out against the whitewashed houses and cottages around the green. Probing moss and grass like plumbers trying to locate a suspect pipe, they must surely be exhausted by mid-morning. By then, our so-called lawn has been drilled with holes to compete with the scrapings and burrowings of the night-shift’s foraging hedgehogs, seeking out the same prize.

For earthworms, first light must bring what feels like the Blitz. I don’t know how fast a worm can burrow, but while submarines could quickly plunge to a safe depth, I fear our worms have been trained by snails, hence the abundance of blackbirds with generous waistlines and glossy feathers.

Well-nourished, they shoot past the window in a blur, fizzing with energy. At breakfast this morning I was pleased to see that one very fat male was taking a break. From his perch in our neighbour’s apple tree he kept one eye on our newly budded daffodils, the other on the street.

I took time to appreciate him more fully than usually, and not just because he was a beautiful specimen. This past fortnight, while gardening, I have come upon the miserable sight of blue-tit down and feathers, snagged among the snowdrops and roses by our beech hedge. Caught on thorns, these blue and yellow scraps fluttered like Lilliputian rags. They were witness, I assumed, to a predatory cat. The wide hedge on both sides of the garden is home to hundreds of birds, but at this particular spot their cover is less dense, and the fence not wholly engulfed by beech. Would a cat leap onto it to snatch birds from their roost? Might something else?

After the third killing, I noticed indentations in the newly dug earth, where the day before I had been extending the flowerbed. They might possibly have been made by a cat, but seemed a little too deep. The roses I planted there, intended to keep bird snatchers at bay, have so far grown up rather than out. This summer I hope they will have a growth spurt and turn themselves into an impenetrable shield. While the flowers of the rosa rugosa are delicate, its thorns are the horticultural equivalent of razor wire. The species was recommended to me by a former headteacher, who had found it a useful deterrent in the school grounds, warding off students inclined to stray out of bounds.

A recent study has shown that blue tits which call upon other tits to help raise their young live two or three years longer than those who do all the chick-care themselves. Who knew birds could be middle-class? Nor is it simply delegating that marks them out as lofty. Just as it is now the ultimate status symbol to have a large family – raised by an army of extras – these upwardly mobile tits, being less exhausted, produce brood after brood. In so doing, they help the tit fraternity flourish. It’s as fine an example of having your cake and eating it as you could hope to find.

Our casualties, sadly, were possibly caught sleeping too soundly after the rigours of mating and nest-building. Checking by the roses over the next few days, I found a chaffinch had also perished. Inspecting the remains of its striped plumage, I reflected that, much as I love cats, it would be impossible ever to have one again, because of the harm they do. Those of us with gardens might think they are ours, to fill with pets as we choose, but this is not the case. If ever I’m in doubt, the cacophony of birdsong, the red arrow displays of hawks, the sparrow shuttlecocks, the cheerleading bouncing of finches on the uppermost branches, the lumbering woodpigeons making trees shake as they lift off, in short the superabundance of avian activity, reminds me of whose domain it really is.

A garden can also be wild. Yesterday, on my way to the shed for a spade, I noticed a patch of earth that appeared to be moving in the breeze. On closer examination, the area where Alan’s garlic is coming up nicely had been turned into a black carpet of downy feathers. It was rippling as if alive, and in its midst was the bitten-off head of a male blackbird. The severed stump was bloody. It seemed as if the bird had either tried to fight off its attacker, or been plucked like a Christmas turkey before being carried off.

Nearby was buckled chicken wire, where some nocturnal intruder had entered. I pinned a boulder on it, but the next morning it had been pushed aside, and the chicken wire once again gaped. This didn’t look like a cat’s doing. The tomcat that lives nearest us has a ritual route, using the wall near our oil tanker for entry and exit, often triggering our security light in the process. Then, in the freshly dug earth, I found badger prints, like the tracks of a small bear. But would a badger be fast enough to snare a bird? I suppose it might have been an owl, but normally it would discard feet as well as head.

I think I know the answer. Early last summer, as readers might recall, we found the buried headless corpse of a pheasant in a flowerbed, stashed there by a fox for retrieval at a later point. I checked to see if the blackbird’s body had been hidden, but found nothing. I could camp out in the summerhouse one night, with a torch, to see if a fox returns, but the thought doesn’t appeal.

The sad truth is that, while these birds feel like the heart of the garden, they take their chances along with everything else. If any of our roster of airborne residents was an endangered species, it would be tragic to see them picked off. Yet to hear the cacophony of blackbirds chanting and the chirping of finches and tits each morning is deeply reassuring. Despite the best efforts of foxes, cats, owls, or whatever other assassins go hunting during the hours of darkness, they seem to be thriving.