infestation

If insects, rats etc infest a place, there are a lot of them and they usually cause damage: be infested with

The kitchen was infested with cockroaches.

I’ve often heard it said that mild winters cause plagues of biting flies or catastrophic bark beetle infestations.

overwinter

to live through the winter, or to make it possible for something to live through the winter

These birds generally overwinter in tropical regioin.

in a predicament

a difficult or unpleasant situation in which you don’t know what to do, or in which you have to make a difficult choice.

Other married couples are in a similar predicament.

This puts them in the same predicament as the birds.

be the order of the day

to be suitable for particular occasion or situation

to be very common at a particular time – used especially when you disapprove of something

Sexual explicitness is the order of the day.

In the off years, hunger is the order of the day for many animals, and that is exactly why beeches and oaks don’t produce fruit every year. The breaks they take ensure that populations of wild boar, roe deer, red deer, birds, and hordes of hungry insects don’t come to depend on their bounty.

give somebody/something a wide berth

to avoid someone or something

Substances in the branches, flowers, and leaves discourage browsing, and roe deer, red deer and cattle generally give the hedge a wide berth.

cramp somebody’s style

to prevent someone from behaving in the way they want to

Paul said he didn’t want Sarah to come along because she cramps his style.

Only young trees or other bushes, such as raspberries, cramp their style, but munching roe deer come to their rescue.

buy (someone) time

to deliberately make more time for yourself to do something, for example by delaying a decision

Can we talk about it later? He said, trying to buy a little more time.