Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 46

MOORHENS ARE BEGINNING to build platforms of reeds at the edges of rivers and ponds. Each pair builds several platforms, and one of them may be used later as the basis of a nest, but at present this activity is part of the pair’s courtship ritual. They also walk around each other with their beaks down and their tails turned up, showing off the white patches under the tail that look like a pair of traffic lights.

At a distance moorhens look dull black but, in fact, they are dark brown above and deep blue beneath, with a red-and-yellow beak and green legs adding further colour.

Ferns still provide some green in the bare woods. By the side of streams and ditches, there are often large, feathery clumps of male fern (this is the name of the plant, not the sex). Some of the fronds are still growing upright, some have jack-knifed with their top half drooping, some are old and brown and are already half-submerged in the water.

On wet rocks and walls, and on hedge banks, there are tufts of hart’s-tongue, which has long, leathery leaves like straps, with the brown spores visible in rows on the underside.