I seldom regret an early start, but still, it’s hard to do. This morning, I’m incentivised by a commitment to a citizen science effort monitoring four farmland birds of particular concern. I have two transects to walk at dawn, across a square covering the edge of the North York Moors escarpment and the steep and glorious Garbutt Wood immediately below, managed by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. I’ve barely left the car park at Sutton Bank before the first of the quartet declares itself emphatically present: song thrush, herald of the day. Sunrise brings the second, a male yellowhammer like a drop of gold spilled from the crucible just after it clears the horizon. I have a few false starts on bird three, the common redstart. Willow warblers and chaffinches have similar tumbling phrases, and the wood abounds with them both.
As I descend a steep path of packed earth, polished roots and limestone, there’s a kerfuffle in the trees on the uphill side. I pause, and spot movement. The ground is rippling – a bow-wave of dead leaves surging towards me. After a few metres it stops, and a head appears, like a periscope. A stripy, black and white head.
