Though the temptation to stay cosy indoors is often difficult to resist, most mornings I try to get into the garden, breathe the crisp air and, if I’m lucky, feel the faint caress of the winter sun on my face. If it’s dry, I’ll sit quietly and watch the birds. Gregarious long-tailed tits, blue tits, blackbirds and robins never seem concerned by my proximity, but as the temperature has plummeted, shyer species have become bolder, leaving the cover of the undergrowth in search of food.
As I warm my hands around a cup of coffee, a wren weaves through the branches of the potted Nordmann fir abandoned next to my chair. Stripped of its festive baubles, it’s now decorated with gossamer spider’s webs, and both web-spinners and entangled prey make a high-energy snack. The dunnock that usually skulks beneath my bay tree hops out from between two galvanised planters. It shuffles mouse-like around my feet, wings and tail flicking nervously, as it pecks tiny seeds from the plumy seedheads of the self-sown Panicum capillare grass sprouting between the patio paving stones.
I turn my head to watch a sparrowhawk soar over the garden and do a double take. I’m so used to seeing mauve pink-breasted wood pigeons perched on the fence that it takes my brain a moment to register that the dusky pink bird I’ve just glimpsed through the steam rising from my mug is more slender than a wood pigeon and sporting an unmistakable wing patch – turquoise blue with black vermiculation – a jay! In the 27 years that I’ve lived here, we’ve never had a jay in the garden.
They’re reclusive, woodland dwellers and wary of visiting gardens as small as mine. While they’re renowned for their love of acorns – their Latin name, Garrulus glandarius, means chatty acorn‑gatherer – like most corvids, they have a varied diet. I suspect that this individual has been attracted by the surplus Christmas walnuts and hazelnuts we’ve left out for the squirrels.
As I spin back around, the jay spooks and flies into my neighbour’s garden. By the time I’ve climbed up to peer over the fence, all that remains is the reverberation of its rasping flight call.
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