Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 16

IN SPITE OF the recent cold weather, the first leaves of many of the spring flowers are coming up at woodland edges and on muddy roadsides. The bright green, fern-like leaves of cow parsley, or Queen Anne’s lace, are already quite thick. There are beds of goosegrass, which at this early stage of its life looks like a trim little green pagoda. Later it will sprawl and cling to clothes – hence its other name of ‘cleavers’. The fan-shaped leaves of mallow are also up here and there, though the flowers will not follow until June. The leaves of garlic mustard, or jack-by-the-hedge, are pushing up through the leaf mould: they are like crinkly hearts, and already smell faintly of garlic when crushed. There are also small, frail-looking dock leaves, and neat rosettes of thorny thistle leaves close to the ground.

Jackdaws plod about on the ground looking for food. They have prospered in recent years, partly perhaps because of the wide range of food that they will take. They are mainly black birds, but have a grey hood and pale grey eyes. The pairs often sit side by side in the trees, in winter as well as in the spring.