Male redstart in full song From a secret place looking down into the cliff face I have a perfect view of a male redstart. Each morning in early May I listen for a cuckoo and, not finding him yet, I return to sit and contemplate this handsome male redstart. I hear him singing across his territory and wait for him to return to his favoured perch. I can't work out whether he knows there are females listening to him, or sings simply in the hope of attracting them into his territory. Then he flies from his perch in display and alights again, showing his colours in a fresh perspective. It's a bravura performance.
Redstart return to the same territory as last spring, and their favoured perches. A wheatear appears where I found him a year ago.
Mountain everlasting, Cat's-foot, Antennaria dioica flowers in short turf close to the clif edge.
There 's cowslip and early purple orchid on Helsington Barrows and we find an oak with female flowers. English oak has male and female flowers on the same tree. The slender male catkins are pendent. Female flowers are erect, small and red- they will form acorns by autumn. It's harder to see the small female flowers as they're in a tight cluster and there are berry-like galls among them.
Mountain everlasting, Cat's-foot, Antennaria dioica flowers in short turf close to the clif edge.
There 's cowslip and early purple orchid on Helsington Barrows and we find an oak with female flowers. English oak has male and female flowers on the same tree. The slender male catkins are pendent. Female flowers are erect, small and red- they will form acorns by autumn. It's harder to see the small female flowers as they're in a tight cluster and there are berry-like galls among them.
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