A Winter Morning in the Bird Hide

Two days after Christmas in 2018 I spent a frosty morning in a bird hide, watching a fungus-covered stump. It is a simple way to work: set up on one perch, keep still, and let the regulars come to you.

The great spotted woodpecker was the star of the session — it landed on the frosted stump, bracket fungus and all, and posed long enough for a proper portrait. A nuthatch dropped in to snatch a seed, and a pair of blue tits squabbled over the same perch, which made for the liveliest frame of the morning.

Everything here was taken between half past nine and a quarter to eleven, all on the same mossy staging with the woodland falling away into soft colour behind. Winter mornings in a hide are cold work, but the light is gentle and the birds are hungry, which is a fair trade.