This patch of hawthorn scrub had been laden with scarlet berries until well into December. Then redwing flocks passed through and today its twigs were bare. Apart from a few rosehips, some already shredded by greenfinches, which use their powerful beaks to extract the flinty seeds, the dangling bunches of guelder-rose fruits were the only remaining flecks of scarlet in the landscape.
It is a mystery why birds always leave until last these shiny, succulent, berries. In mild winters some remain untouched until they wither in spring. That’s unlikely this year. The first real test of winter for many birds, especially those that are not seed eaters, may be about to begin.
I noticed something moving in the gorse on the edge of the scrub. A shadow flickered through the sunlit bush – a goldcrest, with a crown as yellow as the flowers around it.
It was several more minutes before the bird came into full view among the prickly leaves, a slight, tweezer-beaked, bundle of feathers in a threatening forest of green skewers that were almost as long as its body.
The goldcrest was aware of my presence but unconcerned, continuing its search, most likely for spiders, at times coming so close to me that I could have reached out and touched it.
This tiny bird, our smallest native species, never rested for an instant. Sometimes it hung upside down from twigs, sometimes it flicked its wings in little darting flights between branches, all the while probing every nook and cranny and somehow avoiding those needle-sharp gorse spines.
As an experiment, I left the goldcrest to its foraging and moved to the next gorse bush, beginning what I thought was a thorough search of the flowers and spines. In 10 minutes of careful scrutiny and pricked fingers I found just one small fly and some shreds of spiders’ web.
How any of these tiny birds survive the final winter months, as food becomes scarcer and hard weather sets in, is a source of wonder. The sun was dipping towards the horizon and today this goldcrest’s feeding opportunities were coming to an end.
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