Waxwings and spruce are Kinder trespassers

Kinder Scout, Peak District Walking along the western escarpment, it feels like the land has been brushed by Arctic exoticism

Driving out of Sheffield, I pass half a dozen men hurrying up and down Manchester Road, pointing long lenses into the glacier-blue sky, like paparazzi, and pull over to see what the fuss is about.

The cause is a flock of exquisite, starling-sized birds, their silky-smooth, dusky-pale plumage flushed with cloudberry amber, their heads topped with a punky crest, and their eyes dark with a warlike black mask. They are ransacking the ornamental rowans lining the road, much to the annoyance of a mistle thrush, which sallies angrily from its berry-laden perch to rebuff the raiders.