Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 6

MANY TREES ARE quite easy to identify even in winter when they are without their leaves. Oak trees have a very distinctive shape, with broad, spreading branches that switchback up and down. Their bark, too, is easily recognisable: it is as if the trunk were covered in small, slender tiles, each about twice as long as it is broad. Lime trees have branches that bend gracefully downwards, and very often have swellings on their trunks with reddish shoots growing out of them.

Beeches are best recognised by their smooth grey bark and very sharp buds. They can grow tall and magnificent. Hornbeams also have sharp buds, but their bark is quite different: it generally has twisting silvery-grey patterns on it, as if smoke had settled on the trunk and frozen there.

Hedge sparrows are singing occasionally in low bushes: it is a thin song but has its sweet notes. They were once called hedge accentors and are now more often called dunnocks. They are not related to house sparrows: they have a thin, insect-eating bill, not a broad, seed-eating bill. At a glance they seem dull birds, but when the sun brings out their soft, bluish-grey head and striped chestnut back they look quite handsome.