So now for that magical encounter that I first wrote about a couple of weeks ago, here. Today’s Country Diary is the big reveal.

Chaffinches have always been one of my favourite species. Indeed, I previously wrote here, they were among the first species I learned to identify under my own steam from a bird guide as a child. And it seems I’m not alone. Coincidentally, Stephen Moss also wrote about the male chaffinch in The Guardian this week, and and confirmed that this was his experience also. No wonder the chaffinch has such a grip on our hearts.

It’s a grief, as the commentator FinrodFelagund said below the line of both pieces, that the chaffinch has declined to such a degree that they are absent from gardens in some areas. I can’t imagine a world without chaffinches. Those same finches’ wings of Hopkins’ Pied Beauty, might also be those of the Holy Ghost with which the poet ends his wonderful poem, God’s Grandeur. There lives the dearest freshness in chaffinch wings; and in their voices.

I’d like to thank to Paul Fleckney for his editorial guidance, which, as always, improved my writing.