On this frosty morning we have been standing still for so long that our feet are numb. We’re trying to be unobtrusive – a word often used to describe the bird that’s making the dead grasses shake. Eventually, the dunnock hops into view, climbing a swaying stem, intent on reaching dangling clusters of stinging nettle seeds. It’s so close that we could almost reach out and touch it.
How often have we walked past dunnocks, which so often forage mouse-like under a hedge, without pausing to appreciate their exquisite plumage? This one has a collar of blue-grey feathers and chestnut wings streaked with black, blending perfectly with dead leaves in the depths of winter. It’s using its pointed beak with precision, like fine forceps, but for every seed it grips, several more cascade to the ground. When it turns its head into the sunlight, its eye becomes a glowing amber circlet around a pupil of polished jet.
It’s 50 years since we first settled in County Durham, and I’ve been reading back through personal nature diaries. There was so much new to see then. Sometimes, we’d travel the length and breadth of the county in a single day: coast in the morning, fells in the afternoon, riverbank in the evening. We were always, it seems, on the move. But the most memorable diary entries record chance encounters, when we just stood and stared. Hares that came up to our feet as we leaned over a wall; a stoat chasing a rabbit across a snow-covered field, killing it in front of us; a roe deer fawn nibbling wild raspberries on the far side of a hedge. Times when we were unobtrusive, merging into the scenery.
So we have a new year resolution: spend more time standing, watching, in the moment, not on the way to somewhere else. Making a virtue out of a necessity maybe, now that we don’t have so much energy for long, strenuous walks.
The dunnock, flicking its wings, creeps back into the undergrowth. Dismissed as drab, shy, humble and insignificant in some field guides, it will be none of those when, from mid-February onwards, it delivers its squeaky warble from hedge tops, heralding the end of winter, the prospect of spring.
• 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
