Country diary: A precious moment with a robin and its soft autumn song | Claire Stares

Winkworth Arboretum, Surrey: This song is not the same as the full-throated spring version, and it's impossible not to reply toThe arboretum feels like a place in slow transition. The trees are ablaze in shades of maroon, crimson, copper, amber and gold, but with every breath of wind, leaves detach and float to the ground. The spongy bark of a coastal redwood yields under my fingertips. Caught in a crevice, a single downy feather marks where a tree creeper roosted overnight. I scan the surrounding trees, listening out for the high-pitched seeee-seeee-seeee contact call they make as they spiral up a trunk, but there's no sign.The birdlife has quietened. All we can hear are carrion crows cawing from the treetops, an occasional croak from a ring-necked pheasant lurking in the bracken, and the wispy voices of a pair of goldcrests probing for insects in the canopy of a weeping Japanese maple. Continue reading...