Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 67

ROOKS ARE NOW seriously repairing their nests in the treetops. The male flies in with a beakful of mud or a stick, and the female works it into the structure, to the accompaniment of much cawing by both of them, and also among their neighbours. Later in the month, when the female will be sitting on four or five blotchy green eggs, the male will bring her worms and insects to eat.

On the woodland floor, the leaf mould from last year is rapidly disappearing beneath a growth of fresh green leaves. In many places there is already a complete carpet of dog’s mercury, with its wispy, greenish-yellow flowers. The glistening tips of the bluebell leaves and the soft, many-lobed leaves of wood anemone, or windflower, are also coming through.

On grass verges the cow parsley leaves are growing thick, sometimes with a dark purple leaf among the green ones. Hogweed is also pushing up fast. Like cow parsley it belongs to the umbellifers, the family that has flowers like a circle of open umbrellas. It will grow very tall, and its coarse white flowerheads will be around until Christmas.