Birds of a feather

My sky is never empty. At dawn there may be just a lone crow beating a steady path north, or at dusk, the curiously undulating, huge wings of a heron heading to roost in a willow above the ditch. Ducks in pairs race headlong and straight, and thin skeins of geese breast the morning air. Until about 10 years ago, spring was rich with the sad warbling call of the curlew but here, as in so many places, it is now just a haunting memory. Then in late spring and summer, our sky is positively chaotic with martins and swallows by the hundred, cutting wheeling curves like sky skaters.

One of the reasons for so much bird activity is that we do everything we can to encourage