January is a good time to take a look at our native resident birds. Nature reserves like Burlish Top can be a great place to go.

The open heathland surrounded by dense scrub and woodland is excellent habitat. Keep an eye out for the various members of the tit family, including my favourite the long tailed tit. Also up in the trees you may get a glance of a nut hatch, which is a beautiful little bird that always reminds me of a comic book robber with its distinctive dark eye "mask".

Walking along the paths, we will frequently encounter numerous robins, that can at times be the boldest of birds, allowing us to approach them, often to within less than half a metre. Joining the robins, but not half as bold we will commonly encounter the wren.

This is one of our unsung hedgerow heroes. Admittedly it is not one of the most colourful of birds, but what it lacks in colour it more than makes up for in character.

Wrens are very energetic and have an almost infeasibly short tail, which sticks almost vertically up into the air giving the wren a most purposeful of looks.

The short tail and its generally small stature makes the wren the shortest of our native birds. In flight it has the most unusual of silhouettes looking much more like a mammoth bee than a bird with its short, broad and well rounded wings.

At this time of year the wren is far easier to see as the sparseness of the vegetation makes it stand out as it hops amongst the leaf litter beneath the scrub looking for a meal of insects.

In the warmer months the wren will change its habit slightly and predate insects found on leaves higher up in the trees.

Wrens are also one of our songbirds and can even be heard singing at this time of year. Its song is not a melodic melody to attract a mate, but more of an aggressive battle hymn to ward off would-be rivals from this little bird's territory. For most of the year apart from now, the territories are aggressively defended.

The cold January weather encourages the otherwise belligerent male wrens to set their differences aside and become all together more sociable. Choosing a particularly well sheltered area of scrub the wrens will flock together, forming groups of ten or more to help share body warmth to ride out the worst of the winter chill. Despite this, a severe winter can take quite a toll on this tiny bird.

As soon as things start warming up, the winter camaraderie is soon forgotten and territories are once again established.

Come the end of March, the wren changes its harsh territorial song into a much more mellow song to attract a female. They then establish a nest from leaves and moss, which the female graces with a clutch of between five to eight eggs.

Five weeks later the young wrens are able to leave the nest and begin a life of their own.