These evenings have a special magic in the garden.

Distantly the motorway thrums in the honeysuckle sweet dusk.

A muntjac barks close by the gnatted mercury vapour light: I’m busy moth wrangling.

Soprano and common pipistrelle bats chatter detected on my phone.

Strangulated calls between parent tawny owls as their squeaking chick persistently punctures the evening. One adult, measured and bulky, in silhouette over the roof.

Even on this lovely gentle evening, it is difficult not to feel overwhelmed as evidence of biodiversity decline presses in on us.

Last year the worst yet nationally for butterflies and bumblebees. Today a paucity of both in the garden.

Our third year here without cuckoos.

No swifts, swallows or house martins in the sky above us.

We haven’t heard a yellowhammer locally this year and no garden warblers joining the chrous in the garden.

And now a local council in the hands of those who deny climate change.

So, even more special to find a small scrap of good news. In the darkening sky we see and hear our first roding woodcock for several years. It rows across the darkening sky on its creaking circular route of the trees, peeping. This is male on a tour looking for a female with which to mate.

We won’t know of his success but nevertheless are rejoicing below.

45 moths of 127 species.