Sunday, January 06, 2008

Crest of fire

You know what it's like when your feet are really, really cold. You think they're almost numb but they're not, because they hurt. You long to get back in the car and put the heater on, and then get out of there.

That was me this morning at the Swiss Gardens, and we were on our way back to the car when suddenly it appeared by the bridge: a tiny eyestripe of a bird flying through the trees away from us. 'Got it!'

We then spent 15 minutes watching the Firecrest as it hovered around the ivy several metres off the ground, clung to tiny stems and darted from leaf to leaf (why does a small bird which must have to feed constantly bother to hover?). It wasn't close, but it was close enough.

Before, I'd been thinking that it didn't matter that we hadn't seen it, because I'd enjoyed the Siskins singing, and the flocks of Long-tailed Tits, and the flock of six Nuthatches bickering just in front of us anyway, so all was not lost. To see the Firecrest as well was merely the icing on the cake.

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