The land does not keep still. Through winter it withdraws into itself, the hedges dark and skeletal against the pale fields, the copse holding its silence beneath bare branches. Frost will soon gather in the furrows as silver will lay along the grass. Beneath the leaf mould, beneath stones and tangled roots, there are lives hidden from us: beetles deep in the soil, mice in their warm tunnels, shrews moving through the earth, creatures that have learned that survival is often

For more than eleven years, there has been no television in our home. No flickering screen, no endless stream of headlines, dramas, or manufactured excitement. Instead, our entertainment arrives on wings. Each morning and evening, the little copse becomes a living theatre, its performers neither scripted nor rehearsed. The stars of the show are the chaffinches, goldfinches, and tree sparrows, great tips, blue tits and George and Mildred, the blackbirds, they're all busy with