Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 79

THE FIRST BUMBLEBEES are sweeping along the lanes, humming loudly as they go. They gather for the golden pollen on the sallow trees. Many of these early bumblebees are members of a small species with an orange-red tail; larger ones will follow. They are all females who were fertilised last autumn – the males died afterwards – and they have hibernated in warm crevices or behind moss. Now they will start looking for underground holes where they can build up a store of wax and pollen and lay the eggs from which a new generation will spring.

Skylarks are singing over the fields. Sometimes they move forward slowly into the wind, but when their flight speed is the same as that of the wind confronting them they hang motionless in the sky. They are like flags, flying above a territory that they have staked out on the land below. If other skylarks come into that space, they drop down and there is a skirmish, with the rivals flitting to and fro just above the ground. Later they will build nests of grass under a tussock, or in a hollow beneath beet leaves. They are good runners as well as good fliers.