Tuesday 9th January 2024

Occasionally there are red letter moments that permiate a year. This morning I was idly looking out of the kitchen window and spied what I initially thought was a goldcrest flitting through the standard hollies. I watched it for a while, fidgety and flighty, never still, before it flew off and into the greenhouse through the open door. Hmmm I thought I'd best rescue this bird. As I approached it flew to a window bar and hung there, not a common goldcrest, but a much rarer firecrest. There are only something like 500-600 breeding pairs of firecrest in Britain, predominantly in the South East. In winter they do spread along the coast, and here in the South West there will be an occasional sighting in the shrubs around my local part of the coast. But I've never seen a firecrest for years. To have one in the garden was astonishing, and later in my hand, as I rescued it, was amazing. They really are tiny.