looduskalender.ee

Travels to the past
Denzel, Dinah and the late happyness

As long as the old Denzel Jackson could think back, his life belonged to Dinah. In the small circus the others first made their jokes about the love of the boy to the elephant girl. When they after the performance went for dancing and drinking, Denzel rather stayed in the stable with his Dinah. Reading and writing Denzel never had learned and the many happy years with Dinah he did not count. He already had become old and grey when the circus broke and he had to learn to fight for his luck.

Dinah was nearly the same age like he, when Denzel saw in Greenburg for the first time in his life a circus. He was so much enthralled, that he came every day again and when the tent was taken down he just went with. He found work in the stable and soon was allowed to feed the two elephants. Dinah was his favorite and so he every time secretly gave her some tidbit in her trunk. One day Dinah became very sick and there was no money to call a vet. Denzel took his last dollars, drove to the zoo from Louisville and asked the keeper there what to do. He was sitting day and night beside of Dinah and she survived. Now Denzel started to save all his money – for emergency case. And this happened, when his boss went broke. Denzel didn´t have more than 2000$ but for that his boss let him the old elephant lady and also gave him the warped trailer. The two found a home on a farm from where Denzel once had run away. Dinah is standing in a shed. Denzel is sleeping in a shelter just beside. When the restlessness of circus world comes up, Dinah goes into the trailer, Denzel puts himself into the drivers seat and off they go on tour in Kentucky – just same as in old days. Children can ride and for the old stunts they get here and there a few dollars. “This is not legal” the sheriff says and turns a blind eye on them. “They are bitterly poor moneywise. But I think they feel richer than others. They have each other and are happy”.

T.F. Emmiot

English translation by Brit

Oh dear.. lot of expensive cameras destroyed there.. I hope they got some data before the bears got too curious.

Little heart with big feelings
Little mouse Julia and her big love

Since Romeo and Julia came into the life of Helen Duden it is over with lonliness on the little farm in North Dakota. Before the screaming of the coyotes did not let herself to get worked up. As the agile robbers of the night came close to her house and woke her up she turned round and completed her dream. The coyots were finally on tour to catch all the nasty rodents on the fields.

Now Helen Duden is sometimes only annoyed by always the same questions the house guests from all over ask:” How was that with the two? How did they get to know each other? How is such a love even possible?” Helen Duden does not know the answer. She only knows, that it was morning dawn when she went out to greet the first snow. There the young coyote was sitting on the field behind the house starring fascinated on the floor. “That´s not the way a coyote is hunting” Helen was wondering. As the tiny little mouse put her nose out of the burrow Helen said in thoughts to the robber “take her!” but he stood up carefully, went with his front legs down on the floor and crawled to the mouse until their noses touched tenderly. The mouse, quiet as a mouse, was not even as big as the snout which with only one bite could have eaten her up. A whole minute the coyote squat infront of the mouse. Than he got up and went. Since than he is coming every morning, filled up from the hunt of the night just to wish his girl friend a nice day. In North Dakota Julia the mouse and Romeo the coyote became very quickly a famous love couple. But for one week nobody saw the young coyote again. And Helen Duden nearly had to smile, because for the first time in her life she was worried about the big heart of a little mouse.

T.F. Emmiot

English translation by Brit

Love at first bite
The story of the making of the documentary for the BBC
The incredible story of how BBC cameraman filmed world's deadliest bears - and ended up introducing them to his children

By Gordon Buchanan
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z19vax4Ede
It is a very long article but I hope you read it all and those lucky to be living in the U.K. can see for themselves the first episode tomorrow night at 9pm on BBC 2.(3rd Jan.)

A hopping skipping dancing penguin

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -fall.html

Momma seemed suspicious

@macdoum what a wonderful story, thanks for sharing,- I am thinking about translating that ... a little long, but ...

@Alice44 a good laugh in the morning gave me this happy penguin! Thank you very much!

Salt on thick skin
An elephant in seventh heaven

We don´t know if elephants go to heaven. We only know, that Citta has the heaven on earth. Mainly when her little circus is to guest at the island of Föhr. Because Citta loves for life to take a bath in the sea. This she learned from her ancestors from the Andamanen islands. The North Sea is admittedly colder than the Indian Ocean, but the sand is for rolling around soft and warm. Afterwards the children of the island are allowed to shower off salt and sand and to scrub the thick skin. Then Citta is hooting with joy and cannot have enough. So do the children.

Since Citta as a baby was bought free from an animal dealer-cage she is on tour with the circus “Quaiser”. Not a begging circus who is working on pity ploy with half starved ponies. Just a normal family circus with quite normal livelihood worries; six grown ups and five children longing for wood shavings and air of circus ring. Never holiday, never leave work for the day and nowhere at home – but a yellow blue tent, heated winter quarters and food for the animals: Horses, camels, snakes. And Citta, 21 years olf, 4 tons of weight, the only elephant in the world - who is taking a bath in the North Sea.

And the only one who is receiving mail. For example from Petra from Wyk at Föhr. The six year old is looking forward, like all the other island children, that Cittas car is finally rolling off the ferry. Peer (12) is also looking forward. Peer is living in the home for handicapped where the circus Quaiser once gave a benefit performance. Since than Peer did not miss even one performance, he is allowed to enter without payment, and is every time laughing tears, when Citta with her trunk trips the clown up. Laughs how only children in a little circus can laugh. And is sure, that elephants go to heaven.

Herbert Kistler

English translation by Brit

A wild life
The oldest living elephant just became 94 years old

When Vatsala was born in New York the worlds first crossword puzzle was published. Ludwig III was acclaimed King of Bavaria and Woodrow Wilson was just elected as the 28th president of the United Stated of America. Vatsala the oldest elephant in the world – one week ago she got 94 years old. More than 40 years older as these kind of animals usually become. A miracle for which photographers, documentary filmmakers and reporters from all over the world arrived. Attentively they gathered in the Panna Tiger preserve in the Indian federal state of Madhya Pradesh around the old elephant cow and tried to reveal the secret of eternity in her eyes.

Well, truth is: Vatsala is nearly blind and her hearing is since long not any more very good. She is a former working elephant and for her whole life peoples took her for their service: Vatsala was just seven years old when she was caught by a hunting group – since than she never saw the wilderness again, nor had a family, nor the safety of a herd. All that was replaced by men with: iron chains, which were keeping her for months while she screamingly tried to break loose, by a keeper who tamed her with praise and strokes – and by a ten year long training program which taught her to move trees, to lift, to pile to carry. Vatsala learned to march orderly together with other working elephants and when she was 25 years old she was able to follow 25 commandos. The chains which once kept her were since long replaced by thin leatherbands, which she without effort could have cut – but the elephant didn´t fight back anymore. She had given up. Sometimes. Just like that. Without anticipating that the freedom in reality after all these years was only one stepp away.

For 50 years Vatsala was working for humans. She never was allowed to get babies, because bringing these up would have taken 2 years of time in which she would not have been able to work. Besides working elephants in captivity don´t breed really good – so until today every year hunting groups swarm out to rob wild elephant calves from the herd for working. Just as Vatsala was robbed – nearly one century ago. But all this the humans standing around the old elephant cow don´t see. They just see, what they want to see: an old elephant who, because of good care reached a biblical age – and not an elephant who could have lived and died in wilderness.

Dorothee Teves

English translation by Brit

News stories can enrage us, make us laugh, and wonder at the sheer ignorance of some officials.

Here, a griffon vulture is "arrested for spying" because it had a GPS transmitter.
Should we laugh, or cry?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12120259

Jo,having seen the article online I was just wondering where on the forum somebody has already posted about a bird (? Saudia ) that you were anxious to indentify. I didn't find it yet.
Is it the same bird 'held captive' ?

Anyway it is completely ridiculous as there is an active Ornithological Soc; in Saudia Arabia,the same ones who rescued the transmitter from one of the Estonian Black Storks that perished. I am sure we remember this Dr Ahmed ? who was so prompt to help.
Is it any use contacting him,or is this too political now to try ?
I think we should

My story shows the better side of people

Deer rescued from Baltic ice
http://www.koat.com/r/26363739/detail.html

Carmel, is this what you remembered?
viewtopic.php?f=39&t=255

I will look for the name of that ornithologist.
I suspect it is too "political" but it may help GPS-carrying birds in the future if common sense can be demonstrated now.

Here is that very moving story, once more
- Priidupoeg.

http://microwavetelemetry.com/newslette ... 8page6.pdf

Got mixed up Kuwait/Saudia,so not the same bird.
I haven't found the link to rescue of BS. But somebody will have the name of the person that helped before,hopefully.
Politics getting mixed up in birdtracking.. now I have heard it all..
edit;
Jo,or posts crossed here.

Is there any way we can help,or Urmas as he has had contact with Dr. Abdullah ?
I remember people sending him and the farmer Jamal words of thanks.

Gheeeee, nothing seems to be impossible .........

Love conquers the pain
Booby and his way into a new life

Just infront of the lake with the delicious water the poachers shot her. The big cow elephant collapsed directly on the steep bank and nearly stroke her child to death. In the very last moment Booby dodged the heavy body of his mother and that nearly became his disaster. Because he fell down the steep bank and was sticking in the bog. The more he tried to come free, the more he was sinking in.

When ranger Wilbur Bosama found him he was sticking with wide opened eyes up to the trunk in the bog. And than lions came to the water. Wilburg knew it would be useless to shoot even one of them – that wouldn´t safe the helpless pipsqueak. Suddenly this sound was in the air. I sounded like far away thunder, the lions scented anxiously, the nature seemed to keep breath. And than they came rushing out of the valley! A herd of at least 30 elephants under the leadership of a furious trumpeting cow elephant intervening between the lions as they scattered away Wilbur didn´t trust his own eyes: the herd organised with military precision the rescue of their little conspecific. Carefully the five most experienced cows crawled to the scene of the accident pushed, pulled and digged for three endless hours till they finally freed Booby. As he was standing shivering on the bank every single animal of the herd came touching him tenderly to greet him as one of theirs. The old leading cow guided him to his dead mother, whom Booby touched for minutes with his little trunk until the leading cow tenderly pushed for leave. Booby followed her a few steps, paused and had a long look back. Can elephants cry? Wilbur Bosama swears, that he saw two big tears in Booby eyes.

T.F. Emmiot

English translation by Brit

Motherlove finds a way
A not everyday adoption in India

Mysterious sounds, strange smells and than all the fascinating creatures around – for a little tiger the world is a huge adventure playground. Didn´t Tinka pay attention in mothers lessons? When it´s dead calm a branch on the floor is moving, than biggest attention is asked. Like a flash the “branch” was standing upright in front of him – a cobra. Tinka froze. But the seventh sense of a mother is one of the greatest miracles of the nature. In the right moment Tinkas mother was present. The fight was short, Tinka saved – but her mother she had lost for ever ...

For five days Tinka helplessly toddled around. Lonely, hungry, without hope. Than rangers found the tiger child – emaciated, the fur dishevelled . Despite all devotion: Tinka didn´t touch a bite in the “orphanage”. Lying around apathetically – pining away for his mother. Peoples were helpless. Not so the fate: on the next morning Tinka woke up because something warm and humid gently was licking his snout. Kali! The mixture female dog showed up weeks ago at the rangers. She brought a dog bisquit to Tinka - but he only turned his head disgusted. She rolled her best red ball against his nose – Tinka didn´t move. But to avoid the attacks of the dog lady Tinka finally toddled to his feeding bowl. In the next days Kali was the first what Tina saw in the morning while waking up and the last before she fell asleep. And always the dogs eyes sparkled like an order: Eat! Drink! Get up – live! Tinka was fed up. And Kali very clever.The tiger didn´t recognize, that with every sprint which should bring him away from the pushy dog lady he became more strong. After a few weeks Tinka gave up and the Indian animal station had a sensation: a tiger who followed a dog wherever it went! The rangers understood that only much later. One day the owner of Kali came and told: Kali was pregnant – and lost her babies. Than she run away. Directly to the animal station – mother love always finds a way.

by Dirk Simon

English translation by Brit