It was a glorious winter morning at Wraysbury Lakes. The lakes themselves held few birds, but the Goldeneyes had arrived with the recent cold weather, and the males were giving their fine trumpeting call (they’re not called “clangula” for nothing, the duck with the resounding bell-like music) and displaying, too.

A few herons flapped lazily over the water; a small group of tits hopped through the bushes. My first fieldfares of the winter chack-chacked in the willows and obligingly gave good views of their handsome brown-and-grey plumage.

A sparrowhawk raced very low over the meadow. On the way home, a peregrine falcon perched on a streetlight.