Glossy black head, white clerical collar, red chest, the robin-sized bird perching on the low hedge could only be a stonechat. Tail flicking restlessly, it flew up and fluttered round me before landing in the hawthorns, close to where I stood on the ice. My last encounter with one of these characterful songbirds was during the first lockdown when I watched a similarly fidgety individual jumping from foxglove
to foxglove.