Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 89

NEST-BUILDING IS UNDER way. Female song thrushes are constructing deep nests of twigs and grass in hedges and evergreen shrubs, and will line them with a thick, hard layer of bare mud. (Blackbirds’ nests can be distinguished from song thrushes’ nests by the further lining of dry grass that the blackbirds add.) The female song thrush will lay about four or five sky-blue eggs with a few black spots on them, and will do most of the incubating. The male will sing in a treetop for most of the day while she is sitting there, but he will come down and help to feed the young.

Hedge sparrows are starting to nest in similar places, and they too will have bright blue eggs, but smaller and unspotted. The female will sit on the eggs, but she has complicated relationships. As well as her chief mate, she may have subsidiary males to help her feed the chicks. Pairs of long-tailed tits can be seen close to each other on a bough, both of them tearing off green-grey lichen with which to camouflage their domed nest. Some robins have also started to build, while others are prospecting holes in walls, hedge banks and even fallen flowerpots and old kettles.