Winter chill with a cloud of noise
Twitter is not just the exclusive preserve of the over-opinionated wanting to let the world know what’s happening in their lives.
Long before tweeting became synonymous with short messages posted on social media, birds were communicating happily with all manner of chirps, cheeps and chirrups.
I was reminded just how loud these communal outpourings can be during a recent birdwatching walk around open fields.
At first, the sounds vibrating from a powerline stretched across the rural landscape could easily have been mistaken for the buzz of electricity.
But a few steps soon confirmed the source – one of the most remarkable bird flocks I have seen for years in full voice.
The humble linnet was once a popular Victorian parlour pet courtesy of its tinkling song.
In winter, the melodic warbles give way to incessant chattering as these nondescript, small brown birds form noisy flocks to make the challenge of finding food a social mission.
Most linnet flocks I have encountered in recent times have rarely amounted to more than a few dozen birds.
But stretched out along the powerline was a massive gathering of more than 700, each twittering loudly.
Then, in a whirl of wings, the linnets would take flight, not in the way starlings form a murmuration at dusk, but like a rising cloud that would then fall to earth to feast on specially provided feed and wild seeds.
Joining in this farmland food frenzy were countless bramblings, chaffinches, goldfinches and greenfinches along with corn and reed buntings.
Such scenes illustrate the success of environmental stewardship payments that enhance winter seed availability for farmland birds.
The linnet is a species that has benefited over the past decade from this support, with numbers bucking the trend of a long-term decline to rise by six per cent since 2008.
Today’s UK linnet population estimate is 560,000 pairs.
The humble linnet was once a popular Victorian parlour pet