Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 8

SMALL FLOCKS OF chaffinches are feeding under the trees, especially where there is beechmast lying. Sometimes the flocks consist solely of the drab, yellowish-brown females. This is because among Scandinavian chaffinches the female birds may leave for the winter and come to Britain, while the pink-chested males stay behind, or follow later. The Latin name for the chaffinch, coelebs, meaning ‘bachelor’, is derived from this practice.

When the chaffinches fly up from the ground they are easily recognised by thier double white wing-bars, but they usually disperse very quickly among the treetops and it is not easy to follow them up.

Nuthatches are busy high in the trees, and often make a series of rapid, clipped whistling notes – very like the sound a stone makes when bounced across the ice on a lake. These blue-backed birds bustle about on the branches, and will sometimes walk down a trunk head first. They hold on with their very strong claws. They wedge nuts in cracks in the bark, and break the shells by hammering them with their beak. They also eat insects, and at present can be seen peering into clusters of ash seeds in case there are any small creatures to be found there.