She's All for the Birds
Twice a week, 58-year-old Mrs. Winifred Cass shops in the market for her main supplies, "topping up" daily by calling at local shops on her way home from work. But she,s not buying family groceries!
She returns home laden with heavy bags of mixed hen corn, pigeon corn, peanuts and large p ackets of bird food to feed her larger "family", the wild birds of I,eeds. And she's been doing this for 16 years.

Daily, she feeds the birds which frequent her garden, the area around the shop where she works part-time, and several pa tches of waste-ground near her home. Then, twice every week, she ioads the carrying basket with bags of grain on to her tricycle and sets out to pedal the 20-min!ate ride up to rthe city centre.
"In the morning, birds on my own roof at home hang almost upsidedown trying to see me through the windows." She laughed. "In severe conditions last winter, I had as many as four robins in my garden at the same time, though they're well known to be territorial birds.

"It's amazing how many different kinds of birds I see in the city itself . In Park Square, as well as the usual starlings, pigeons and sparrows, there are blue tits, great tits, thrushes, doves, and sometimes even seagulls."
It all started when Winifred was working at a cafe. She used to throw out stale bread and buns, and developed such an interest in the wild birds which accepted her offerings that she started taking food along to those in City Square as well.

On one occasion, an old lady sitting in the square remarked that the birds could do with a more nutritious diet. So Winifred began buying corn for them.
"In the end, I was carrying so much weight and tramping so far that my feet and arms really ached, ?she said. "I tried using wheeled shoppers, but with the weight of all that corn they were breaking within weeksl So I splashed out and bought this tricycle."

Winifred has come across other wild-life on her travels, too. "I stop to feed families of hedgehogs which I found at the side of the railway near the park," she said.
Despite her love of birds, she'd never want to keep one because she can't bear seeing them caged.
Disaster struck recently when a car reversed into her parked trike, damaging its wheels. But two local business men, hearing of her activities, decided kindly to help by replacing the wheels for her.
So now the "Bird Woman of Leeds" is back in action again, doing the job she loves best-caring for the host of feathered friends who have come to rely on her.