The cost of a festive holly wreath could double this year - because greedy birds have gorged themselves on berries.But the price of a Christmas kiss is unlikely to rise because there are good supplies of mistletoe.
Buyers from across the UK and Ireland descended on Brimfield, near Ludlow, today to buy holly and mistletoe at the annual auction organised by Tenbury Wells-based auctioneer Nick Champion.
The event, the largest of its kind in the UK, started at 8.30am and two further auctions will take place over the next fortnight.
Mr Champion said there were a staggering 825 lots of mistletoe and auction being sold.
He said: “The cost of mistletoe is going to be fairly steady at about 25-50p per lb. But the cost of holly is going to be double, compared to last year, at more than £1 per lb.
“The holly price has risen so much because we’ve got a poor crop. The birds have got at it in the past few weeks and they’ve eaten a lot of the berries, so it’s quite scarce.”
9 Comments
“greedy birds have gorged themselves on berries” - who exactly, watched to find out in was greedy birds, it may have been lots of non-greedy ones, or other animals? What a silly story just to bump prices up.
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“Greedy birds” - for goodness sake! How dare the birds look after themselves and try to survive?? Shame on you Shropshire Star. The only greedy things in this world is us - human beings!
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I’d rather the birds ate the berries than some body pick it all!
Birds have the right to eat what they want! I blame the picking of Holly at Christmas to be the real reason why our songbird population is in such decline.
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Never mind greedy birds - what about greedy florists and stupid journalists!
Maybe I should also point you to the large number of wild bird hatchlings which died this spring due to the heavy rains and the potential effect on the UK’s wild bird population.
If I had the choice of seeing wild birds or holly wreaths this winter I know which I would choose!
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Hey what better way for the berries to be used and if you dont like the price of the wreathes then dont buy them. If it bothers you so much give the money you would have spent to an animal charity.
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No all Florists are greedy, we only pick holly with no berries and use artificial berries. I have no problem with the birds eating the berries good luck to them
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Holly should be used as it was intended - as food for birds, squirrels etc. Well done ‘greedy birds’!!
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Don’t any of you people realise that the holly being spoken about in this story is a professionally grown crop just like wheat or cabbages. Do you think florists and garden centres go out into the countryside and uproot wild holly just to satisfy customers? The Holly crop represents some poor enterprising farmer’s lively hood. Diversification sometimes helps wildlife, these berries wouldn’t have been there in the first place if the holly crop hadn’t been planted.
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Don’t think ‘greedy birds’ have got anything to do with it. That’s just a story to get the press and public interested.
It’s simply a poor year for holly berries, that’s all. ‘Greedy Birds’ would have only taken larger than normal quantities if the autumn had been hard and cold and there’d been no other food about. But it wasn’t and food has been plentiful, relatively.
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