Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 13

THE SNOW HAS made the Lawson (or Lawson’s) cypresses stand out, particularly in parks and churchyards. They are tall, smooth, dark green spires, but there are usually enough ragged leafy edges for snow to settle on them. The leaves are scaly and slightly sticky, and have a resinous smell like parsley. The original trees come from the hillsides of Oregon and California, but they are now the commonest cypresses to be seen in Britain. They lend a gloomy dignity to gravesides. There are also many cultivated varieties, some of them a much brighter green, some golden-yellow. They can be used for hedges.

In the cold weather, blackcaps and chiffchaffs have been coming into gardens. Both of these small species are mainly summer visitors to Britain, but a few blackcaps that nested in Germany have come here for the winter, and a few chiffchaffs that nested here have stayed behind while all the rest have gone to Africa. The chiffchaffs generally stay in the bushes but the blackcaps come to bird tables. The blackcaps are silent, but the chiffchaffs have a sharp ‘hweet’ call that draws attention to them. Neither of them will sing until the spring.