This was a day to raise the coat collar, hunch the shoulders and keep on the move, because the bare hedgerow offered little shelter from a bone-aching north-westerly wind.
Fieldfares had stripped the last of the hawthorn berries long before Christmas. Now, apart from a solitary crow that flew away as I approached, the landscape seemed lifeless and bleak.
But then there was a sudden flurry of activity amongst the tangle of branches and briars beside the footpath, and soon I was surrounded by a flock of long-tailed tits.
I can think of few birds so certain to lift the spirits in midwinter. They bounded along the hedge beside me in a restless flock, hyperactive acrobats, each pausing for just a second or two to search for food morsels.
It is a wonder that such waif-like birds, seemingly just ragged bundles of grey, black and pink feathers, survive winter at all. Even if I spent an hour scrutinising twigs with a magnifying glass, I doubt that I would be able to find more than a few insect eggs and perhaps a spider or two.
Their survival seems to depend on constant movement, spending each second of the daylight hours in a relentless search of every nook and cranny.
They flew on ahead of me but I caught up with them again on the edge of a wood, where they were foraging in the low branches of a sycamore.
Part of the charm of these birds is that they are so fearless when they are intent on feeding.
There were moments when I could have reached out and touched them. I could hear the scratch of beaks and claws on tree bark and the rustle of wing feathers.
Sometimes they dangled below branches like trapeze artists, perhaps searching for aphid eggs on buds, using their long tails as counterbalances.
Then they were winkling something out from crevices between twigs, buffeted by wind that blew their tail plumes awry; antics that put a smile on my face. Phil Gates @seymourdaily
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