Saturday 16 January
Yesterday, a blue tit took centre stage. Today, whilst walking locally, it was the great tits’ turn. I have only really heard flocks of birds making noise over the past couple of months. Individual bird song is noticeably absent around us, apart from the odd robin or distant magpie. But the toot-toots of the great tits in the hawthorn was an unexpected treat.
It snowed this morning. The snow turned to sleet and the sleet to rain and, by midday, it had all stopped. By the time we stepped outside for our walk the rain had done much to melt the snow. Just blotches remained on the fields or clung stubbornly to the sheltered sides of tree trunks and branches.
We stayed local today, partly because of the weather and partly because of the current lockdown restrictions. But these oh-so familiar lanes and footpaths also provided some comfort. It’s nice to know exactly how long it is and how much time it takes.
On the way back, past the tooting of the great tits and clacking of the magpies, we came across the carcass of a decaying fox. It was lying half-in and half out of the ditch by the side of the lane. Possibly a car hit it, or it simply died of more natural causes. But the way it was presented was as if, whilst lifeless and decomposing, it had somehow dragged itself out of the ditch. I imagined it doing this under cover of the night, where the unlit lanes are seldom visited.
The landscape was cold, lacking signs of life. The skies were thick with dull grey, the trees and hedgerows were bear already but seemed dead today. Just as freshly caught fish is packed up with a liberal scattering of ice, so the fields and everything in and around them, looked similarly deep frozen today.
But, just the sound of those few birds for those few minutes, has stayed with me today.
The Bald Birder 