A new year begins for the blue tit and partridge: Country diary, 31 December 1920:

31 December 1920 The birds go by the weather and not by any artificial, hard and fast arrangement of times and seasons

There is a winter moth on the curtain; it fluttered in last night. Its presence is normal at this season, and has little to do with the mild weather, but the merry tinkle, almost a laugh, of the blue tit is not the usual passing bell of the old year. Close to where the ploughman was cutting neat furrows in the moist earth two coveys of partridges squatted on the still undisturbed grass, where more than the usual number of daisies, though slightly, rain-soiled, are fully open.

Related: Country diary 1917: warmth from the sun brings out winter wildlife