Watch how I soar

Keith casts his eye over the goldcrest, our smallest bird but one that is far more resilient than it would first appear

It may be our smallest bird but the goldcrest makes a big migration to reach its Angus wintering grounds.

Imagine a tiny bundle of feathery fluff – about the weight of a 10 pence coin – whirring over the vast empty darkness of the North Sea.

The piercing nocturnal wind is relentless and the crash of the tossing sea a fearful reminder that this is do or die time. The nearest landfall is hundreds of miles away and the stumpy wings of this little goldcrest just have to keep beating, they must keep beating. And so too must the many hundreds of other wings all around him in this migratory flock.

Hours later, as dawn breaks, this miniscule goldcrest flutters over the sand of an Angus beach and birls down with his compatriots into a nearby conifer plantation, totally exhausted. They have just flown from the coast of Norway to spend the winter in Scotland.

The goldcrest is our smallest bird, yet these tiny creatures undertake this remarkable migration in their tens of thousands each autumn and spring.

Fishermen working the storm-tossed waters of the North Sea would often find droves of goldcrests suddenly landing upon their rigging for a rest, spawning names for these wee birds such as “herring spink” and “tot o’er seas”.

On the Isle of May at the mouth of the Firth of Forth it is not unusual for swarms of incoming goldcrests to suddenly appear in October, before quickly moving on to the nearby mainland.

The early 20th Century ornithologist Thomas Coward also recounted coming across such influxes by the coast when he wrote “…these newly arrived birds, even when showing no signs of fatigue, slip amongst the marram grass and buckthorn at one’s very feet”.

Little wonder that early naturalists were convinced such a scrap of a bird couldn’t achieve this feat unaided and instead believed that they hitched a lift on the back of migrating woodcocks; hence the old Yorkshire name for the goldcrest of “woodcock pilot”.

These immigrants augment our own resident population of goldcrests, making this a good time of year to spot one. This is a bird of understated beauty, from a distance small and greenish, but up close that wondrous gold crest across the top of the crown shines out like a flickering flame.

Listen carefully and their gentle wispy calls can be heard too. If you do manage to catch sight of one, it soon becomes apparent that its behaviour is similar to a blue tit, flitting from twig to twig and investigating every nook and cranny. Sometimes it will temporarily hover in this quest for food, much in the same way as a humming bird.

The approaching winter will be a testing time for both our resident and visiting goldcrests. Unlike the blue tit, which can vary its diet and use bird tables, the goldcrest relies almost totally upon small invertebrates for sustenance, and as such, a prolonged cold snap will decimate their numbers. For them, winter really is a lottery for survival.

Immigrant goldcrests come over from Norway and augment our own resident population.