looduskalender.ee

 

Gennadi Skromnov, who has been on Saaremaa together with Ivar Jüssi to see the seals says that in Vilsandi National Park the first grey seal pups were born last week. On the mainland the foxes have finally abandoned poking around at roadsides and gone on to proper fieldmouse catching. The deer who could be seen roaming singly or by pairs on brighter and better days, joined forces again to herds of a dozen or so on snowier days. Potholes were scraped in favourite fields with sprouting crops, that were left criss-crossed with tracks. The hairless human animals do their forest runs with their guns – this week’s victims are again two small bear cubs whose mother fled from the hunters in Pärnumaa. Now the Nigula wild animal rehabilitation centre has five small bear cubs growing – the first three already manage several steps before they fall again on their behinds. The new orphans are, according to Kaja Kübar, as yet more solidly ground-bound. The rehabilitation centre’s manager should really be awarded a bear mum medal – of 35 bear cubs taken to the shelter 20 have been brought up and let out in the forests. But it seems like a never-ending task.

 

Armchair nature viewers got another watching object this week. A constantly sleeping tawny owl is the new star of the web world  www.eoy.ee/kodukakk/kakukaamera. I must say that looking at that ‘film’ I am sorely tempted to knock with the mouse on the screen – maybe the owl would then look up or do something. But Nature is a place for learning calm and patience. Those birdwatchers who go outdoors assure however that the owls already call happily at nights, and it was most bewitching in the full moon nights in the beginning of last week. It is clear too that the daylight namesakes of owls (“öökullid”), the hawks (“kullid”), have become active. More mouse-hunting buzzards have been seen in the fields. And magpies, jackdaws and ravens are clearly livelier. The magpies keep near their nesting stacks and peer with some alarm when somebody happens approach it.

 

 

No doubt most people just now mostly sit indoors, in front of a computer screen, whether this is due to unfinished work tasks or fear of cold. In ancient China a whole set of exercises were set out for the “strength-keeping” of soldiers, to fight back-pains and other problems caused by long-time sitting. Acupuncture doctor Lembit Kuhlberg recommends it even for us, see http://kodu.neti.ee/~ok003a/ – stretching upwards or “pushing the sky”, bow-staining exercises or “aiming at eagles”, “joining heaven and earth”...

 

Much more care was taken in earlier times to have good long sliding paths for Shrovetide than we do now. Before Shrove Tuesday, vastlapäev, young spruces were felled and cleared of branches, and the poles were then laid down in two parallel lines, one meter from each other, down a hillside, so that there was a long corridor between them; to make sure of an even better sliding bed, water was poured down the path. The going down was made two by two, always boy and girl together.