Ingham's World

Birdwatching is a bit like supporting a football team. You have to suffer all the defeats to savour the rare, epic victories. As a lifelong Crystal Palace fan, I know what I’m talking about.

Most weeks my garden is a bustle of birds but all I see are the usual suspects. Blue, great and coal tits, robins, blackbirds, pigeons, finches, all lovely, always a treat, but all a bit everyday.

But yesterday, after weeks of the equivalent of mid-table form, I was treated to the birding version of winning by four goals in a semi-final.

In the holly bush outside the kitchen window there was a sudden movement. A little bird, smaller than a blue tit, was hovering by the prickly leaves, having a rest and then starting up again. At first I thought it was a goldcrest, but then I spotted its striking white eyebrows.

It was a firecrest, just as tiny, but more exotic than its relative. Firecrests have been breeding in southern England in growing numbers in recent years, says the British Trust for Ornithology, but there are only about 1,500 pairs.