Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 65

SOME OF THE signs of spring that were sparsely distributed at the beginning of this month are now to be found almost everywhere – they are no longer signs of spring, they are spring itself. The white bells of snowdrops are nodding on innumerable lawns and wooded hillsides. Now that the temperature is often above 10°C, the yellow winter aconites are staying open most of the day. Elder bushes are sprouting on all their grey twigs. Chaffinches are singing sturdily in orchards and country lanes. Blackbirds are singing everywhere.

Long-tailed tits are going in and out of dense bushes, prospecting busily for nesting sites, although some of them will build their domed, lichen-covered nest in a completely bare hedge.

On yew trees the yellow flowers have developed into tiny jar-like shapes with a mass of pollen clustered at the top. If the branches are shaken, a dense white cloud of dust seems to rise from the tree as the pollen breaks free.