The first snows of the winter have been followed by overnights of -10C, and the trees and grasses are filigreed with a thick coating of frost. A flock of chaffinches are cooried up in a nearby birch, and I check for bramblings, a bird I’m always delighted to see. Our feeders are busy with coal, blue and great tits, goldfinches, woodpeckers and a solitary crested tit too, the latter another sure sign of winter, though I wonder where the siskins are. In the past few days there has been a flock of finches a hundred or more strong, coming and going, landing on the topmost branches of the birches and pines at the far side of the field, and I can’t tell if their restlessness is part of their modus operandi or because of our local marauding sparrowhawk. In the afternoon, the temperature rises to -7C and I go for a walk. My footsteps seem loud, and grasses, mud and leaves that have been soft underfoot are crunchy. Puddles crackle. When I stop, the place is silent and it’s easy to forget how the snow shifts the quality of light, and sound too. In this early gloaming, a soft mist envelops the valley, casting everything in a soft pink-grey. I cross hare tracks and follow mice or vole tracks that crisscross like an intricate dance, heading up towards where I know there are pinewoods, even if today they are invisible, then ghostly. I know that if I could climb to a higher point I’d be in bright sunshine and looking down on this low cloud inversion. It’s just 3.15pm, but sunset is in about 15 minutes, so I head home. The mist thins just enough to see a hint of blue above. I hear a loud chattering, then see the finches again – redpolls – in a birch just in front of me, skittering and chittering around, hanging upside down on the branches like early Christmas baubles. When I get to the tree where they were, the snow underneath is confettied with birch seeds, and I follow them to another and peer up, amazed at their acrobatics, how they disrupt the stillness of the afternoon with their movement and noise, smiling as they shower birch seeds and snow on my head.