It was a long time before I realised the visitor was a goldcrest. For weeks I’d caught glimpses of a tiny, drab, olive-coloured bird in the garden. Shooting in under the cherry tree, feeding frenetically but briefly on the fat balls, materialising suddenly on the bird table before vanishing again. It was on the woodpile this morning when I spotted it through the window. Flitting over the logs, it would have remained incognito if the sun hadn’t happened to come out. All at once the dowdy little bird was revealed to be wearing a crown of orange gold. No wonder the Latin name for the goldcrest is little king. Goldcrests might be our smallest birds, but the flame on the head of this young male (females have a more yellowy crown patch) lit the February day. No wonder Aristotle crow