Country diary: brief encounter with a woodcock in the wildwood

Bishop Auckland, Durham Gnarled, leafless branches reach out like those menacing trees in Arthur Rackham's fairytale illustrations

The flow of Coundon burn is constricted by farmland and by a tunnel under a road and disused railway embankment for much of its course, but once inside Auckland park it remains free to meander for the final half-mile before joining the river Gaunless, close to its confluence with the Wear.