The Times A Year in Nature Notes. Derwent May

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ on their stalks and show their pale undersides. The thorny bramble stems are also growing vigorously: they make it difficult to walk along woodland paths without tripping up. Many gorse bushes have been in flower throughout the winter. Their bright yellow flowers are surrounded by dark green thorns and pointed leaves that look like still more thorns. The straggly gorse shrubs found on railway embankments and roundabouts are survivors from heathland that has been ploughed up or built on.

      House sparrows have disappeared from many town centres but they are still quite common in villages. Sometimes a flock of male sparrows will pursue a female into a bush, chirping in a noisy chorus, displaying their dark bibs and trying to peck at her underparts. This usually happens when they see a male chasing his mate, and they join enthusiastically in pursuit. No one is quite sure why they have vanished from towns but the process began half a century ago with the disappearance of the spilt grain from horses’ nosebags. Nowadays there may be competition for food with pigeons, and fewer nesting places.

      

4th March

      RAIN MAKES THE moss grow on garden lawns, leaving them a patchwork of different shades of green. The dead stems of teasel and rosebay willowherb resist the downpours and still stand tall in waste places: the egg-shaped teasel seedheads remain prickly and guarded by a ring of sharp spears, though they are empty of seeds by now, while the willowherb has bedraggled tufts of feathery seeds still clinging to it. More leaves of spring flowers are coming through, including the pale green leaves of primroses.

      Birds are not much affected by the rain though most of them try to keep out of it. They have waterproof feathers, but after getting wet they shake themselves and preen vigorously to make sure their feathers are overlapping properly. Rain is more serious for them later in the spring, when it can wash caterpillars that they need as food for their young off the leaves. Surface-feeding duck such as mallards and shovelers keep to the shelter of the bank when it is raining, but birds such as tufted duck and pochard go on diving out in the middle of a lake.

      

5th March

      A CURIOUS GOOSE that is found mainly on lakes in Norfolk but often turns up by other waters is the Egyptian goose. It is a fat, buff-coloured bird that looks as if it has just received a painful black eye, and it also has a disconcertingly long neck. It is an early nester, and some pairs already have a nest with eggs under a bush, or in a large hole in a bank. Not many of the broods are successful. It is really an African bird, widespread on that continent, and some were brought here from South Africa as long ago as the 18th century.

      Conspicuous at the edges of lakes just now are the disintegrating heads of the bulrushes – known to botanists as great reedmace, and also sometimes called cat’s-tail. The brown sausage-shaped heads are breaking up into fluffy white seeds, and look very ragged as the wind tears at them and carries the seeds away. Where the heads are still firm, male reed buntings are sitting on them and singing. Their song is a monotonous repetition of a few dry notes, but they are handsome birds, with a black head, a white collar and a back like rich orange-brown tapestry.

      

6th March

      BRIMSTONE BUTTERFLIES ARE on the wing on sunny mornings. They have just come out of the ivy or holly bushes where they slept all winter. The males have beautiful sulphur-coloured wings – hence the name ‘brimstone’ – and they are very conspicuous as they fly down a wide woodland path with the bare trees on either side. The females are a very pale green, almost white, and on a cursory look might be mistaken for a large cabbage white. Brimstones are long-lived butterflies. The new brood comes out of the chrysalis and flies in July, feeds up on plenty of nectar, overwinters, and – as the ones now emerging will do – lives on till the next June or July. They have a very long proboscis, and can reach with it into runner beans and teasels to extract the nectar that lies deep in those flowers.

      Bluebell leaves are now coming up all over the woodland floor. The plants need to develop before the new leaves on the trees cast too much shade over them. The bluebell leaves are glossy green and sharp-pointed. On a bright morning, when the wind blows, little waves of silver seem to pass over the ground as they bend and catch the light.

      

7th March

      MANY MOUNTAIN OR blue hares in Scotland are pure white in winter to match the snow – although they keep the black tips on their ears. Others turn only partially white. If the snow melts before they have turned bluish-brown again, they become very conspicuous as they streak across a heathery or grassy hillside, and their winter camouflage becomes a disadvantage. In summer they can be distinguished from brown hares because they are smaller, and lack the brown hare’s distinctive black tail, or scut.

      Ptarmigan on the Scottish mountaintops also turn white in winter. They stay among the snow, burrowing beneath it for heather leaves and dried bilberries. They will soon be exchanging their white feathers for a mottled grey plumage, which in summer will disguise them equally well on the rocky slopes. Even at that season, however, they reveal unmistakable white wings when they fly.

      Red grouse, unlike the ptarmigan, have been coming down into farmland when the snow has made it hard for them to find food, but they will return to the moors when it has cleared, and will start gorging on fresh heather shoots.

      

8th March

      FLOCKS OF REDWINGS are singing in the treetops, often alongside a field of springing corn. It is a murmuring, babbling chorus, only audible from quite nearby. These thrushes that visit us for the winter sing like this when they are beginning to contemplate their return to Iceland or Scandinavia. Their real spring song is a brief, delicate warble, only heard when they get back home. The singing flocks are very wary, and if one gets near the trees, most of them quickly fly out. For a few moments, the sky is full of the birds, flying with a curious, drunken-looking flight, tipping to left and right as they go.

      Colts foot flowers are opening on bare ground beside field paths. They are like small suns, with a dark yellow centre and bright yellow florets round it. Each flower grows on a scaly, pink-and-green stem. The leaves will follow the flowers and become very large, while the flowers will give way to untidy seed-clocks.

      

9th March

      COOTS ARE BEGINNING to collect reeds for their tower-like nests, which are usually some distance out from the bank of a lake. Sometimes the reeds they carry in their beaks are as wide as the birds are long. Deeper in the reeds, water rails are calling. They make loud squeals when they are fighting or courting, and they also have a repeated sharp СКАЧАТЬ