Goldcrest
Needly fidget, fantasy hitchhiker
Our tiniest bird has an equally tiny scene to remember its song by.
Imagine the dinkiest of bicycles, wheels in need of a good oiling, running down a slope and falling over at the bottom.
If that’s a bit of a stretch, ‘needly needly needly needly’ is a useful approximation for rhythm too.
This has the advantage of alluding to where you’re likely to hear a goldcrest too: anywhere with pine needles. That might be deep in the Caledonian forest, or among the skirts of an ancient yew tree. But equally it could be in your neighbour’s half-dead leylandii hedge. They’re not fussed.
The pitch of the goldcrest’s song, and its other silvery little vocalisations, means that it can be hard to pick up for some human ears.
Fortunately goldcrests are not shy, often feeding a few feet from the ground, close to busy paths and roads. With a little patience, or luck, one will jump to the end of a nearby branch at eye level, and hang upside down, hover or generally fidget, unbothered by your presence.
When the angle’s right, you will see the fleck of fiery orange or gold feathers, bordered by dark lines, running along its crown. Occasionally, typically during an argument, these lift to form a crest.
Goldcrests are resident across Britain, and singing already. Now’s a good time to pick them out, before much of the spring chorus has begun.
Fantasy hitchhikers
With such tiny bodies, weighing just a few grams, many will be struggling to keep fuelled up and warm in the current freezing conditions. But goldcrests are hardy adventurers.
In the autumn, thousands arrive from the East to winter here, and the unlikelihood that something so small could make it across the North Sea led early observers to some creative theories.
Most famous is the idea that they hitch a ride on the back of woodcocks, which arrive at about the same time. This is now in the same category as the notion that swallows spend the winter hibernating in ponds, but the lengths we have gone to explain these phenomena does serve to underline just how extraordinary the realities of migration really are.
There’s a Shriek of the Week every Friday. If you know someone who might like a dose of birdsong in their inbox, please pass this along.
Thanks to Fintan O’Brien for his recording of goldcrest song and TheOtherKev on Pixabay for his image of a goldcrest.