The sight broke my running pulse. It stopped me in my tracks. I catch my breath.

A tiny bird inspects each side of every branch and twig of a hazel sapling on the edge of the path where I’m running. As it’s still for tiny fractions of a second, I struggle at first to tell whether it is a Goldcrest or a Firecrest – we have both here. Eventually I’m rewarded by a slightly longer pause, so I can see a black eye against an unmarked pale sage cheek and a subtle yellow crown. A Goldcrest then.

I’m perfecting the art of slow-running. I tell my friends that it’s so I can nature watch at the same time, which is at least partially true. It’s also because I’m just bloody slow. Either way, this bird is one that I look out for all the time on my circuit of the woods.

Given my running speed, it’s perhaps ironic that the Goldcrest is my favourite bird. It lives its life to a pulse that is probably at least four times as fast as mine. When the bird is watching me, I must appear a lumbering giant living life in slow-motion.