It’s -6C and I’m off to what has been a regular haunt recently – a field planted by Speyside Fields for Wildlife. This is a small, community-run charity that works with local farmers, crofters and others to take over “spare” fields and land for wildlife-friendly crops.
Some sites are planted with annuals such as cornflower, corncockle, marigold and poppy – important sources of pollen, nectar and flowers that used to grow among the grain crops before herbicides became commonplace. Others, such as this one on a hill farm, have been planted with seed crops that benefit birds and other wildlife during autumn and winter.
From afar, the field gleams icy-white, and when I arrive the ground is crunchy underfoot. The black oat and barley stalks are brittle and more of a pale gold, thick and glistening with the hoarfrost – the open and empty seedpods of the fodder radish too. A chaffinch pecks atop a head of millet, and soon I’m watching charms of finches fly down from the surrounding birches to disappear in the vegetation. Some birds alight on the stalks, and when they take off again they’re joined by 20 to 30 more birds that have been skulking below.
My neighbour reckons this field has seen flocks of a thousand or more birds this winter. Mainly chaffinches, but greenfinches and goldfinches too, and – an exciting sight for me – a few wintering bramblings. It’s remarkable how these birds, so often overlooked as prosaic, gain new fascination in these numbers.
As if from nowhere, a new flock appears – perhaps a hundred linnets. I think of the aptness of John Jamieson’s entry in his 1867 Dictionary of the Scottish Language: “Havoc-burds. Those large flocks of small birds, which fly about the fields after harvest; they are of different species, though all of the linnet tribe.” They flock from treetop to field to tree and split into squads and platoons, before coming together in a company on the topmost branches of a rowan. It’s mesmerising to watch this repeating in the lowering sun. I stay until my feet are numb.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
