Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 56

THISTLES ARE BENT and broken, and their fluffy seeds are lying waterlogged on the ground around them. Goldfinches, which sat on the thistleheads to pluck out the seeds when they were still standing, are now coming down to the ground to pick them up. Their gold-barred wings flash as they dart nervously away with a silvery twitter, but they soon return. Greenfinches are also coming down to the ground at woodland edges to feed on fallen burdock seeds, which they greatly like. Where early dandelions have flowered, both finches will take the seeds from the dandelion clocks.

The new spring flowers on roadside verges are the lesser celandines. On south-facing hedge banks that catch the midday sun, many of them are fully open: they normally have eight or nine glossy yellow petals of rather irregular shape, but flowers with as few as six or as many as twelve petals can be found. In shadowy ditches the greyish-yellow buds on their long thin stalks are still waiting to unfold.