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| Life in the Willows |
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Page 1 of 5 Wildlife associated with Willows in the Cornish Countryside by Jean Lawman. Did you note the arrival of the Willow Warblers this year? In mid-April, when the grey and brown willows flushed yellow with pollen-laden catkins, they came in, having flown all the way from their wintering grounds in Africa. You more likely heard them first. On April 15, there was one singing from the willows in our valley – they were once called Willow Wrens. It was easy to pick out the song among the other spring sounds – the mellow Blackbird, the contented mewing of Buzzards and the earthy Chaffinch song. It starts hesitantly with a few fluid notes, and then melts into a downward lilting trickle; a lovely sad-sweet song, quite unlike that of any other bird. A few days later, many migrant birds were grounded by sea fog, the thick, milky sort, that creeps onto the coast and envelopes everything in a fine, opaque mist; beautiful and other-worldly, but hazardous to the stream of incoming birds. The coastal lanes, bound by pungent Alexanders and stunted Blackthorn, were flush with them. Most were Willow Warblers. |
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