The old name for March, "Starvation Month," is usually justified,
if winter, with snow, carries on into March. Countless birds die of
starvation. After a hard winter there is little food to be found;
but large berries remain a long time on some of the ivy bushes, and
come into favour among robins and blackbirds. There has been little
green growth since September, though the larger celandine shows bigger
leaves, coltsfoot is out, wild arum leaves are green in the hedges,
and there is green growth on elder-bushes, woodbine, privet, and brier
bushes. Insect life for food is of negligible quantity: though myriads
of gnats may be hatched by the sun, they are poor eating. Of flowers
there are hardly any, and the sparrow, pecking at the crocuses in his
need, earns the hatred of gardeners. It is a time of hunger with many
animals awakening out of sleep; with the field-voles uncurling from
their beds of grass, and with the hedgehogs shaking themselves free of
their balls of leaves. A new activity is stirring, birds are living at
pressure, many animals have young, hundreds of birds come in daily
from overseas--but supplies for all seem at the lowest ebb.
* * * * *