Country diary: a hilltop dew pond is a night-time haunt for birds

‘The horseshoe-shaped dew pond is far older than the wood that surrounds it.’ Photograph: Nicola Chester

I reach the spinney on the hill just as the flash-in-the-pan boil of a sunset goes out. The circular wood, of beech, oak and pine, hides a lens of water on these otherwise dry downs. The last low clouds are clearing in a stiff wind and the orange needles of a larch suffuse a marmalade glow to the entrance.

I step carefully over the snares of rooted bramble arches, but the wood is loud with pheasants, clattering up to roost and crowing about it. I reach the pond and nestle my shoulders into a stunted beech trunk to wait.

The horseshoe-shaped dew pond is far older than the wood that surrounds it. It is said to be the highest body of water this side of Derbyshire, though that seems unlikely. The tall pines sough in the wind and creak with the reassurance of old furniture. Colour bleeds from the tawny grasses at the pond’s edge, although the gleam from a Norway maple leaf in the water remains, like a floating candle.

It is blackbird pinking hour, but the pink-pinks of settling birds can barely be heard above the din of pheasants. It builds in waves from the valley, reaches the wood in a crescendo, before settling into irritating, staccato duels between coughing cock birds. Eventually, they fall silent.

Sunset over the byway, Gallows Down, West Berkshire. Photograph: Nicola Chester

Finally, the wild ducks come in for the night. Mallard first, in fours and fives, softly quacking as they circle the chimney of wood to find the disc of pewter water within. They go round several times before stalling and landing with a short, steep water-ski splash and the polite applause of more subdued quacking.

Petite and nervy teal, small as waders, come next, announcing their arrival with a whistle of wings around the wood’s open rim. They are silhouetted briefly as they come in, braking on back-pedalling wings, jinking and falling in with a succession of satisfying small plops.

I take an age creeping out, not wanting to disturb them. The sky forms a navy-blue dome, frescoed with stars, over the rotunda of ducks. And the first teal-green bauble of a Geminid meteor streaks slowly across, as if someone had lobbed it, underarm, over the top.