Sage, brown and orange

It is the twenty-eighth of December, I think, and I go for another walk in the woods. The forest is bare and deserted, the sky a skim of churning milk, threatening to rain or sleet or snow. Clouds conceal the tufted tops of fir trees in a wonderfully menacing sight.

To know where those clouds end and the mist below begins is impossible. A thin line between heaven and earth. Like these final days of the year, the atmosphere itself has collapsed into one great blur. And like you, I trudge on.

…Along paths strewn with brown leaves and pine needles, over twisted roots and past equally twisted trunks which, now entirely stripped of leaves and life, stand exposed as crippled skeletons. Underfoot, muddy furrows made by the living — humans, dogs, fox and deer — hold small puddles of water. There has been no sun to dry them out and no frost to freeze them, and so these black, muddied mirrors will stay there forever until the weather makes up its mind.

Coming down a hill I can see some farmhands at work in the field beyond. Some sort of agricultural vehicle is parked beside them, a flashing amber light on its roof, and the men wear high-vis jackets and helmets and gloves, toiling in the cold. Nobody can see them out here; they wear fluorescent orange but still they are invisible. People think of doctors and nurses and police officers and supermarket workers at this time of year, running an indulgent world, but out here people haul grain and mulch sleeping raspberries, themselves waiting for the moment they can push open their front doors and call it a day, and coddle themselves with chocolate and Wallace and Gromit.

It is a haunting place now, this forest. There is nobody here and my mind goes to horror films. As I weave through the dead bracken, the only life I can see is the scuttle of squirrels in the corner of my eye, their fur as grey as the sky, the sound of their tiny claws splitting the air as they scramble up pine trees. Birds sing, of course. They always sing, though they, too, are invisible like the farmhands, their dun plumage hidden by the browns and sages of a wood in winter.

I stop so my eyes can find them, these winged singers, and before long a blackbird bursts from the undergrowth with a straggling worm in his beak, and lands on a branch, out of reach of the obnoxious human who has come and disturbed his festive peace.

And later, a robin, singing from a red-less mass of holly.

It is a joy to see any bird, even the familiar blackbird and robin (how about that for a superhero duo?), but it is an even greater joy to see a firecrest.

At first I see nothing of him, only hearing his song, a shrill telegram of chitters. I stop to find movement in the stillness. Britain’s smallest bird is expectedly difficult to see.

Finally, as ever, patience pays off and he is there in the brambles, darting like a pinball through a machine, an erratic and beautiful thing. A walnut of neatly striped feathers with a tangerine, punk-rocker crown that provides the bird with its name. In this winter woodland, the orange blaze almost sings for itself. It is as if, for the most fleeting of seconds, King Midas touched this creature’s head before changing his mind.

The bird rummages for insects — not too fussy, at this time of year — before fluttering to the next perch. I follow him, keeping my distance, enthralled by his presence, a rare winter treat in this corner of the country.

I am used to inventing stories on these walks, to try and make sense and friendship of the birds, and in this edition two wanderers are navigating their own paths through the woods and, however briefly, those routes have drawn parallel.

Perhaps the firecrest has something to say. Why else would he tolerate me following him? Glimpsable through the criss-crossing branches, he keeps talking as if passing on a message, spilling a secret, teaching a lesson. I resist the temptation to edge closer, to look at him in the bead-black eye, but know it will be a step too far and he will be gone. He is always — rightfully — out of reach.

He stands, still singing, scouring the dead frays of bracken for something to eat. Around him, winter’s grip is one of silent nothingness, everything at rest. But for a second I see inside his tiny feathered body, where a whole system is beating: a brain and a liver and a pair of lungs, bones and blood vessels, bundles of nerves, gizzards, a pancreas and a tiny, throbbing heart. Life over death, another story.

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