In the depths of frozen midwinter, the birds are here to fill our days with song

Keeping the bird feeders well filled in this wintry weather pays off – the old hawthorn tree in the corner of the garden is filled with song birds waiting their turn to feed. As late as half past three, when the light has largely gone out of the day, the last stragglers are still sitting up in the topmost branches, although they may be digesting their last meal before going to roost.

Several roost in the nesting boxes, and if we are up early enough we’ll see a blue tit flying out to start feeding all over again.

Because the small birds don’t build up large fat reserves to keep themselves warm, they must spend their days foraging for food to maintain their body heat to survive the long, cold nights.

Interestingly, birds weigh more in the evening when they go to roost than in the morning when they’ve used up their fat reserve overnight. It’s particularly hard on them at this time, as their daytime foraging is reduced from 16 hours in the summer months to around eight hours. At night they find a sheltered corner, fluff up their feathers to trap extra heat, tuck their heads under a wing and fall asleep.

For whatever reason I didn’t clean out the nesting boxes last October as I usually

do, scouring them out with boiling water to kill off harmful bugs and parasites and closing them again with a wisp of hay in the bottom as insulation for roosting birds. I opened one box and found last summer’s nest intact and a perfect, warm roost protecting the winter residents from the inclement nights.

I’ll need to clean them out soon, as the birds will be starting to seek out nesting sites in the next few weeks.

Different species of birds require different types of nesting box. The size of entrance hole is important – blue tit, great tit and house sparrow require holes of 25mm, 28mm and 32mm, respectively, so you are able to decide what species of garden songbird you want to attract. Blackbirds and robins require an openfronted box.

I’ve put one up for more than a dozen years and never attracted a nesting bird yet. I’ve no idea what more I need to do.

The success of having the bird feeders is shown in the range of birds that visit our garden. Daily visitors are chaffinches, goldfinches, blue tits, tree sparrows, robins and jackdaws.

Blackbirds don’t have the right sort of claws to grip on to the feeders, and up to six come each day, hoovering up discarded seeds in the grass and hunting for worms.

Our resident woodpigeon calls in for a snack.

It is joined from time to time by a collared dove.

Less frequent are coal tits, the occasional brambling, starlings and, if we are lucky, a woodpecker comes for the peanuts.

Thrushes were regular visitors during the summer, but they have abandoned us meantime for a better menu elsewhere.

We’ll look forward to seeing them again in a couple of months.

● The small loch at the foot of Glenesk was frozen over except for open water in the middle. As I walked up there I heard the mallard calling and the whistling calls of wigeon. There must have been nearly a hundred ducks sitting on the ice in the sunshine, who moved on to the water when they saw me. As I walked quietly round the edge, several small packs got nervous at my intrusion and flew off.

A pink-footed goose burst out

from behind some undergrowth and, its large paddle feet scrabbling on the slippy ice as it got airborne, flew off after them.

A single swan was resting at the head of the lochan. As I watched, a heron flew in as if to land beside it. The swan raised its wings aggressively as if to attack the heron, which backed off and flew on.

I hadn’t seen this behaviour before and wondered if it was an instinctive reaction of the swan, which thought it was protecting its food source at a time when food was scarce due to the hard weather. I carried on round the loch to identify the swan, which turned out to be a whooper. It’s a winter visitor from northern

Europe or Russia and will likely have flown to the lochan from Montrose Basin.

The heat was going out of the day, and it was getting nippy round the fingers and tips of my ears. I had stayed longer than I

had intended, but there was more to see than I had expected. I turned to walk back to the car. Across a couple of fields, noisy rooks and jackdaws were squabbling over nesting sites in a small wood.

It had been a thoroughly satisfactory morning, and I looked forward to a warming bowl of the Doyenne’s homemade soup and a couple

of bannocks.

The swan raised its wings aggressively as if to attack the heron

WINTERTIDE: The half-frozen lochan at the foot of Glenesk – and some of its resident ducks.