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| A time for dinky birds and winter-kings | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| At this time of year, it can sometimes seem as though the bare trees have been decked out with toy birds. The broad-spreading alder across the river is tinged purple-pink (the fuchsia-coloured catkins persist deep into the winter) and the branches are busy with tinkling finches: green siskins, bright motley goldfinches, chaffinches in pink and soft greys. | At this time of year, it can sometimes seem as though the bare trees have been decked out with toy birds. The broad-spreading alder across the river is tinged purple-pink (the fuchsia-coloured catkins persist deep into the winter) and the branches are busy with tinkling finches: green siskins, bright motley goldfinches, chaffinches in pink and soft greys. |
| I pause on the riverbank as a detachment of long-tailed tits, perhaps a dozen or so, makes its shuttling way through the willows. For a few moments I’m surrounded by them, a cloud of them; beneath the familiar hubbub of zinging tsees and tsirrups, I can hear their soft chut, chut contact-calls. Dinkiest of all are the two tiny goldcrests that pick over a low-hanging ash branch while working through a programme of deft variations on the theme “upside-down”. | I pause on the riverbank as a detachment of long-tailed tits, perhaps a dozen or so, makes its shuttling way through the willows. For a few moments I’m surrounded by them, a cloud of them; beneath the familiar hubbub of zinging tsees and tsirrups, I can hear their soft chut, chut contact-calls. Dinkiest of all are the two tiny goldcrests that pick over a low-hanging ash branch while working through a programme of deft variations on the theme “upside-down”. |
| All of these birds – none weighing more than an ounce, and the smallest of them, the goldcrest, barely tipping the scales against a 10p piece – have a crisp, spruce look; their colours might be new-applied by a fine paintbrush, their songs are jaunty tintinnabulations, even their movements from twig to twig have a ticking clockwork quality. They might have arrived in a box from a toymaker’s workshop. | All of these birds – none weighing more than an ounce, and the smallest of them, the goldcrest, barely tipping the scales against a 10p piece – have a crisp, spruce look; their colours might be new-applied by a fine paintbrush, their songs are jaunty tintinnabulations, even their movements from twig to twig have a ticking clockwork quality. They might have arrived in a box from a toymaker’s workshop. |
| A wren (twice the bulk of a goldcrest, but still seldom heavier than a pound coin) looses off a blistering volley of song from the hedgerow to my right. Then it buzzes across the path and, landing neatly on a bowing elder-stem, has a teacherly, head-cocking look at me. | A wren (twice the bulk of a goldcrest, but still seldom heavier than a pound coin) looses off a blistering volley of song from the hedgerow to my right. Then it buzzes across the path and, landing neatly on a bowing elder-stem, has a teacherly, head-cocking look at me. |
| The wren is known in the Netherlands as the winterkoning – the winter-king. You can hear its earsplitting song all year round; wrens will suffer in harsh winters – all small birds will – but the song goes on, its note of challenge undiminished. | The wren is known in the Netherlands as the winterkoning – the winter-king. You can hear its earsplitting song all year round; wrens will suffer in harsh winters – all small birds will – but the song goes on, its note of challenge undiminished. |
| We used to hunt wrens on Boxing Day (or on Christmas Day, in certain places: one antiquarian wrote that on the Isle of Man the dead bodies of the wrens so caught would be pinned to hollyboughs and paraded through the town). All the more reason to celebrate the bird’s resilience. If I had my way the winter-king would displace the robin on all our Christmas cards. | We used to hunt wrens on Boxing Day (or on Christmas Day, in certain places: one antiquarian wrote that on the Isle of Man the dead bodies of the wrens so caught would be pinned to hollyboughs and paraded through the town). All the more reason to celebrate the bird’s resilience. If I had my way the winter-king would displace the robin on all our Christmas cards. |
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