The Times A Year in Nature Notes. Derwent May

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СКАЧАТЬ is a brisk run of ringing notes, followed by a whirling flourish. It has been compared to a bowler running up faster and faster to the crease, then swinging his arm over. When they begin singing, they often produce a rather creaky version of their song, or a truncated version without the flourish. But soon there will be many of them, all singing the pure, classic form. Most of the other birds that are singing at present have been heard intermittently throughout the winter. The chaffinch is the first real spring songster.

      A tree that comes into flower early is the cornelian cherry, which is a native of southern Europe once widely planted here. Nowadays Chinese witch hazel is preferred for late winter flowering. Cornelian cherry is a low, bushy tree, with clusters of cowslip-yellow flowers on silvery stalks. They are just coming out. The leaves will open later: if they get torn, the two halves can still hang together with a kind of latex exuded from the veins.

      

2nd February

      MISTLE THRUSHES ARE now singing more regularly. They sit high in the treetops, and their loud, challenging song is like a trumpet blast. It often ends abruptly, as though the performer has just been shot; then the bird starts all over again.

      A pair of mistle thrushes can frequently be seen now out on a playing field, looking for worms. The two birds may be quite far apart, but they are very aware of each other, and if one of them goes up with its churring alarm call, the other will swiftly fly over to join it. When they stand in the open facing the low morning sun, their spotted breasts look more yellow than buff. They are large birds, and when they fly away with a flash of silver under their wings, they look as much like doves as thrushes.

      On larch trees, the leaf buds are like fat little tubs along the bare brown twigs. They will soon show a tiny spot of green on the top of the tub, and the beautiful, fresh green needles that will emerge will be among the first leaves of the spring. Horse chestnut trees are also among the earliest trees to come into leaf, and their pointed buds are now very large and sticky.

      

3rd February

      WRENS, WHICH WERE still singing vigorously in November, have fallen silent during the past two months. The short hours of daylight have kept them busy all day, searching for enough insect food to see them through the long, cold night. Their tiny bodies quickly lose heat in the chill air. But with February their rapid song begins to be heard again from the dead bracken and the hedge bottoms. As the month proceeds they will start to sing higher up in the bushes and trees: they are advertising for a mate, or disputing with their neighbours over territorial boundaries. Two males can sometimes be seen waving their wings at each other in an aggressive display, or even fighting quite fiercely with beaks and claws among the branches.

      On oak trees, the scaly brown buds are arranged in spirals along the twigs, with a cluster of buds at the tip. A butterfly that lays its eggs exclusively on oak twigs is the purple hairstreak, an almost-black butterfly with a purple sheen that flies in July. The eggs lie on the twigs, well glued to them, from August to April, when the caterpillars emerge and eat the young leaves.

      

4th February

      NOW THAT THE weather has turned milder, winter aconites are beginning to open. When the temperature is below 10°C, the flowers stay closed up in tight buds, but once the air around them reaches that level of warmth, they unfold. They have six bright yellow petals, and a little green ruff round the stalk beneath. The larger leaves will develop around them. They are found mainly in woods on damp hillsides, often with snowdrops.

      There is also a sprinkling of soft, bluish-green leaves in the woods. These are the leaves of honeysuckle plants that have wound themselves round bushes and slender tree trunks. When the leaves first open they are in the form of a cross, with two larger and two smaller leaves facing each other, and also a short column of unfolded leaves in the middle. The sweet-smelling flowers will not appear until June. Honeysuckle is classified as a shrub, and may be found in tree guides as well as flower guides: it can clamber up to 15 feet above the ground.

      

5th February

      ROOKS ARE BACK in their treetop rookeries, beginning to prod at their nests and rearrange the sticks still left from last year. But they will not start serious rebuilding for a while yet, and will lay their eggs in March. It was always said that rooks went around in flocks while crows were solitary birds, but since carrion crows have grown more common, flocks of young birds are often seen feeding together. Rooks are best distinguished by the bare, whitish skin at the base of their beaks, but crows’ beaks can also glint and look white when they are wet and the light catches them. Rooks in flight can sometimes be recognised by their deep, relaxed-looking wing strokes and the more ragged ‘fingers’ at their wing-tips, compared with the crow’s tidier wings and more plodding flight. They also have a yelping kind of caw that is not heard from crows.

      In the branches of poplar and apple trees, as the white berries disappear from the mistletoe clumps, small greenish-yellow flowers take their place at the joins between the stalks.

      

6th February

      THE FIRST BLACKBIRDS are singing. They have one of the most beautiful songs of all the British birds, with its leisurely, fluting notes, flung out so casually by the singer. After a few phrases, the song sometimes deteriorates into a careless jangle of notes, as if the singer were suddenly bored – but a moment later the bird is in full, mellow voice again.

      Some birds, such as carrion crows and magpies, stay mated all the winter, but blackbirds, like our other resident song birds, are now forming pairs for the coming summer. Generally, the male bird finds an attractive territory and starts singing in it, and the female bird goes looking around local territories until she and a male form a mutual bond. Then they settle down together – though they are not always faithful to each other. Like the other birds, blackbirds also sing in order to warn other males of the species against venturing onto their plot of land. Their fine notes are a threatening as well as an alluring sound.

      More daisies are opening on garden lawns; at night they close up into red buds. In wooded valleys, the snowdrops look like streaks of snow lingering on the valley sides. The male flowers are out on yew trees and hedges: they are like tiny yellow sponges on the underside of the shoots. A few flowers, such as groundsel and red dead-nettle, have survived the winter and can be found in little groups in sheltered places.

      

7th February

      GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS are drumming in the trees. They find a trunk or bough СКАЧАТЬ