To the end
Completing my twelve months of observing and recording in my 'Homecoming' journal, here is December 2025, in a flurry of robins and starlings.
The cheerful song and ruddy garb of robins brought some Christmas cheer to a month which mostly offered greyness. A radio programme I heard snatches of during December[1] suggested cold, freezing winters were a thing of the past and climate change has brought a milder grey season. In my final Homecoming[2] entry, bringing 2025 to a close, the prediction seemed spot-on, until Christmas itself, when frost twinkled on the ground and empty skies left nowhere for the milder weather to hide. A reflective chat with some very old, dear friends at the end of the month made me appreciate just how lucky I am to now live still surrounded by the constant, year-round chatter of birdlife, even in this darkest of months: robins, blackbirds, sparrows, starlings, tits, the latter three increasingly vulnerable nationally. With the nudge from Homecoming, it has been a pleasure to really notice this throughout the year and, with attentiveness fast becoming a theme of 2026, just being willing to look and be curious brings a slower, quieter understanding, based on satisfaction rather than target-driven enlightenment and knowledge conquest. Although I no longer record my observations, I am very much more aware and engaged as I walk. Life has been unexpectedly busy since autumn, not a good accompaniment to the titular procrastination, hence my needing the first half of January to get this December entry typed up and edited, but an hour a day of listening, looking and even smelling has felt, at risk of sounding life a self-appointed all-knowing lifestyle guru, both restorative and totally authentic.
Monday, 1st:
After the pretty shades of the past few days, it was rain and greyness and more rain today. No colour in anything as I zipped around the smallest walk that would keep me sane, silence apart from a gusty wind.
Tuesday, 2nd:
Sun’s out again and the robins definitely, and noisily, approve. Clear sky and bright light to highlight the skeletons of trees – not just the overall branch structure, twisting anthropomorphically, but also the delicate webbing of branch tips.
Wednesday, 3rd:
A ten miler in South Northamptonshire sheep country. Lots of robin chatter, rooks, magpies and ravens complained as I passed, one startled skylark. Low sun revealed a network of single, delicate lines of cobwebs hanging between trees. Dark, chocolate brown moth crossed a churchyard, too quick and far to identify, but all moths at this time of year were brown when I tried to look it up.
Thursday, 4th:
What a contrast to yesterday! Chill water drizzling down, steadier now, with a brushing as wind. Still the robins chatter persistently, great tits bustle undeterred and the starlings gathered in formation above the pub, noisily meeting in their favourite garden on the other side of the village by the time I got there.
Friday, 5th:
Cold, windy and threatening to get wet. Birdsong lost on the breeze, but nature was most alive around the new housing again – red kite making a din, competing with the hubbub of the starlings, the pair of adult wagtails coordinating moves and a spot of yellow gorse to brighten a grey day.
Saturday, 6th:
Grey, with bursts of rain, so short that I’d barely put my hood up before it stopped. Once the showers had clearly gone, a swarm of starlings performed, an evening murmuration over the village.
Sunday, 7th:
More greyness, milder but with more concerted rain. After dark, when it had stopped, a smaller walk around the middle of the village – cloudy skies to the south, wisps, gauze in front of stars to the north, the Plough in plain sight.
Monday, 8th:
Starlings still in fine voice, nattering away noisily. A couple of blackbirds spoke out from different rooftops and one daredevil specimen gave some very vocal backchat after whizzing between me and an oncoming bus as the gap decreased rapidly.
Tuesday, 9th:
As Storm Bram has battered the west and north, a lot of rain here overnight. Duckhouse pond looks ready to bulge over its banks, although the main church pond still seems lower than before the dry summer. Drains, leafy no doubt, unable to cope. It either seems to be too dry or too wet, Goldilocks killed off by climate change.
Wednesday, 10th:
Water has been absorbed quite successfully despite all the recent rain. I suppose, because there was so little water in the ground during a dry summer, it soaks in quickly. Puddles vanished and spots where I was worried about driving through floods were bone dry.
Thursday, 11th:
A second nice sunny day in a row. A pair of red kites hovering in the still blue sky, a pair of gulls less placid, loudly arguing and chasing. The crack of a crow’s caw cut through the clear air.
Friday, 12th:
Grey, a bit drizzly, but brightened by golden moments. The road downhill from Henley is still lined with leaves, orange, brown, a wall of colour against winter’s gloom. Late afternoon low sun, watercolour amber. After dark, robins still chattering.
Saturday, 13th:
A rare thing, a frost. Not a very hard one but definitely crisp and white out there. It made for a pleasant sunny stroll around the village, with very conversational bird activity and two sparrows, a male and female pair, watching me intently.
Sunday, 14th:
Basildon Park to get into the Christmas spirit. Whilst the Christmas trees inside were impressive, those outside in the parkland were evocative – established and bare against the skyline. Driving home later in the darkness, deer waiting nervously on the verge, waiting for headlights to pass.
Monday, 15th:
I keep mentioning the starlings this month but, along with the warbling of energetic robins and the bush-rustling activity of sparrows, the starlings are the most busy wildlife I see. Formation, then separating, then forming up again, as if rehearsing a complex murmuration move.
Tuesday, 16th:
A lot of rain overnight and for much of the morning. I ventured out just before lunch, when it had stopped – the usual robins, starlings and sparrows joined me in enjoying the end of the precipitation. A flock of gulls screeched and argued over gardens, fleeing, perhaps afraid of a vocal red kite.
Wednesday, 17th:
Among the robinstarlingsparrow mash-up through the village, a lone blue tit. Not singing or chattering, but a single plaintive note, a squeak of a sad dog’s toy behind the song and conversation of the others.
Thursday, 18th:
A day of heavy rain. Flood warnings on rivers and, on my shorter evening loop when it had stopped, long strides were needed over the largest puddles. The village lit up by twinkly and then violently flashing Christmas lights; however, the best display a red berry bush which, illuminated by a street light, looks like a subtle, tasteful festive decoration.
Friday, 19th:
Mummers after dark, starlings my daytime neighbours. Winter skies have a delicious milkiness to them, a certain layer of depth and texture that, even when blue and cloudless, they are never wholly clear. An empty blue sky in summer is bold, dramatic, through a filter; in winter it could wrap itself around you.
Saturday, 20th:
In pursuit of a red kite. I encountered it feasting on the road in front of me. As I approached, it flew up and follow the tarmac for a few seconds, vast wingspan leading me forwards.
Sunday, 21st:
White egret, distinctive yellow legs like a hi-vis safety measure, flew up from the brook as I passed. Not sure what’s living in there[3], but it must’ve been appetising for the egret.
Monday, 22nd:
A cacophony of birdsong in the garden this morning. I lay in bed listening to the dawn chorus, before being serenaded outside – the noisy robin claiming ownership, a lone blackbird and a handful of sparrows.
Tuesday, 23rd:
A typically grey, overcast December day, wind biting and Chiltern Ridge hiding behind its cloudy gauze. A day for noticing what is always there but quietly hiding – birds’ nests in the bare trees and just how boldly green the moss on grey walks is.
Wednesday, 24th:
The starlings were holding their noisy Christmas party in the tree by the pub, all chatter and bustle, some parading past my window afterwards. Better, though, than the three lime green parakeets who screeched over my head in Henley.
Thursday, 25th:
A Christmas robin, enjoying his spotlight at this time of year, both on cards and in brightening up mid-winter’s darkness with colour and song. A near half moon, a bright crescent in clear skies out-performing house lights’ garishness on a post-late lunch stroll.
Friday, 26th:
The garden noisy with birdlife, despite it being deep winter. The robin still very much in charge, reminding us all of that from his favourite tree. Sparrows chattered, a gathering in the trees, and great tits made for the bird feeder once the robin had had its turn!
Saturday, 27th:
Robin again, first on the bird feeder, then making its loud, droid chatter out of sight. When night falls, he is still singing, this time from the front, and in the early morning.
Sunday, 28th:
Down on Salisbury Plain. Once again my bird of prey doubts, although pretty sure I saw red kites (or maybe buzzards!), far from where I’d expect to see them, now spread far and wide. Lots of vocal corvids of various kinds. Haze over the folds of the hills, filling the valleys below as I walked on top of the Plain.
Monday, 29th:
A Wiltshire robin this time. Bobbing ahead of me along a paved footpath, calm and vigilant. How close would it dare let me get?
Tuesday, 30th:
Back where I grew up, very old friends I’ve known all my life, discussing the wildlife there. A serious lack of bird variety now, greenfinch, starlings, swifts and swallows all vanished. Now, mostly blue tits (lots) and jackdaws. Plus, Joe the Crow! Frost descending after dark, pavements twinkling.
Wednesday, 31st:
Proper winter – cold, a covering of frost, fog until late morning, the birdbath ice needing to be broken this morning. An early evening walk, an eerie bark, perhaps a fox, distance and direction unclear and moving in the clear, still air, winter’s deception.
The Guild of Master Procrastinators remains a free publication to keep be accessible to anyone who wants to read it and, after all, it is a bit too ragged and irregular to be monetised fairly. If you enjoyed ‘To the end’ and would like to support my writing, I’d love you to like, comment below or restack it (or all three!). If your pockets run even deeper, I always greatly appreciate any donations to the caffeine and notebook habit that keep me writing.
[1] Rare Earth, which can be found on BBC Sounds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001vbt0. One of the panellists is Substack’s very own friend of the hedgehog, Hugh Warwick; you can read more from him, including a post which partly features his appearance on Rare Earth, here:
[2] If you’re not familiar with Homecoming, it is described as a ‘guided journal to lead you back to nature’, the brainchild of writer Melissa Harrison. Once you get over how wrong it feels to write in a book that someone has written, it is something of a revelation. Find Melissa on Substack here:
[3] Water voles were recently found to have returned further upstream, in a festive good news story. Read all about it here: https://www.wildoxfordshire.org.uk/news-blogs/water-voles-spotted-in-the-river-thame-catchment-for-first-time-in-decades
How beautiful to look back on all the tiny changes and small, cherished moments, of a month in nature 🌿
HI Melissa, nice to have you back and thank you so much for restacking. December feels so long ago now, doesn't it, even though it took me half of January to type this post up! I've been thinking how the birds are sounding more springlike over the past couple of days and even the sun felt like it wanted to be warmer today, even if I was still all wrapped up!