Country diary: mistletoe decorates a lime with its pearly berries

Sandy, Bedfordshire Up in the crown of the tree, a mistle thrush gave a rattling call, as if exerting its planter's rights

Under the unkind umbrella of a spreading oak, a stunted horse chestnut tree had received a white feather. Dropped from a dove, it had landed on a big brown bud as sticky as a toffee apple. The winter elements had then set to work, soaking and battering the kiss-curl of down into limpness, laying it out in the bud's protective goo and soiling it with dust, seeds and shards of leaves. But still the feather refused to dim its light.

This tree had caught not one falling star but two. I spotted another white feather at waist height, glued fast to another terminal bud. The chances of one feather snagging must have been small. The chances of two"