Ideas from the Front Page

[Kitty KCMO]

It is funny that the terms thistle and niger came to be confused -- probably because the finches in the wild love thistles -- but they love mints and all sorts of seeds.

Kitty I noticed the European Goldfinches looked different, what with the red on them.

Here are Lesser Goldfinches on my parents' feeder. In summer these seem so dull, but now they seem so bright and cheery.



And I think this feeder just has standard millet bird food, but notice that the hole for the seed is tiny -- well there may be a second hole just above the cup to catch the food.

Nice photo, as usual, Alice. I don't think in my part of the country we get the Lesser Goldfinch, only the American Goldfinch, which is brighter colored, at least in spring & summer. They do darken in winter & look somewhat similar to the ones pictured. I haven't seen any goldfinches, yet, so I don't know if they are around our neighborhood. We mostly see house finches right here, but goldfinches are regular visitors to feeders in lots of neighborhoods around the city.

[alice44]

Kitty it is amazing to compare the two goldfinches at this time of year -- the American goldfinches are so drab, in a few months it will be reversed.


(This picture was from my mom and she is very pleased with it.)

[Liis]

About autumn ending on December 22 http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/8990 - thanks, Jo, for pointing out the difference between equinoxes and solstices last year! In Estonian it is pööripäev, "turning point day", for both.
Wikipedia states that the 2010 winter solstice should be on December 21, but that is a matter of local time zones - I guess.

So calendar winter and the Boar camera both started on the winter solstice day ...

[Kitty KCMO]

Christmas Peace in the Forest is a wonderful concept that I had not heard of before now. So I just checked ( ) and even the elk/moose is enjoying the forest celebration! See?

[leonia]

Hello Liis,
the header of the article on beavers: "Life around the mud squirrel's lodge" brought me into trouble. In German this play of words isn't working to associate a beaver with a squirrel. I helped myself with the translated form of "water-rodent", but I wonder, how it was in the Estonian original?

[Liis]

Hello Liis,
the header of the article on beavers: "Life around the mud squirrel's lodge" brought me into trouble. In German this play of words isn't working to associate a beaver with a squirrel. I helped myself with the translated form of "water-rodent", but I wonder, how it was in the Estonian original?

Ah, well, lost in translation ... Me, or the words? (both, at a guess)
What it said, as precisely as can be translated was
Around the mud squirrel's heap all sorts of creatures move
That Estonian name for the beaver can well have been thought up by the author of the Estonian original. Who might, or might not, have been aware of the more esoteric slang meanings of its English translation.
"Beavers' lodges favour biodiversity" might have done too, of course.

[Liis]

Correction ... That book title “Üle õue õunapuu” in the Backyard Potterer’s December is literally “Apple tree across the yard” but it does really mean “The prettiest [best, coolest …] apple tree”. Of course.
(The book that had his friend believe, as a kid, that mice wore folk costume skirts)
Utterly devastated – what have you been thinking of me? But, as Õueonu’s scientists and their two African elephant species, I did find out, eventually …
As some small compensation HERE is a link to a treatise on Estonian riddles and sayings, statistically analysed. For the not-so-statistically-minded, many interesting riddles with lots of animals and nature in them, Estonian with English translations.

[alice44]

I hope we hear more about urban foxes. I am generally interested in urban wildlife because it is interesting to see how animals adapt to us. Urban foxes are especially interesting because I think in the US coyotes most fill that niche (except maybe on the East Coast where there are no foxes ...sigh... where there are no coyotes -- so they may have urban foxes) .

[Liis]

The researchers have promised a progress report in May about the response to the questionnaire, so let us hope it will come in LK too (we can try to nudge the LK editorial powers ... )
In Stockholm I suspect the urban foxes may have a tougher time lately: less cats (food! - not seriously, plenty of rats around), really steep increase in dog population.

Tree of the year - elm http://www.looduskalender.ee/node/9173. Fine solitary elms are said to grow in all Estonia - no elm disease?
Although the disease doesn't seem to hit 100 %. I have 2 absolutely non-favourite elm trees - no sign of problems, happily filling out a courtyard to bursting point and growing on.
EDIT: Just checked, one of the trees is absolutely skyrocketing. No habitat fit for elms really, elm disease nearby. It must have managed to drill some roots into a sewage line for extra nourishment ...
OK, admitted: elms are quite beautiful with that dark purlpe-violet flowering (if you look closely) and those pale-green rosettes of seeds in their first few weeks. But that is a VERY brief season.

[leonia]

Translating the article on WTE (The eagle-tree) I must smile, reading:
Figuratively speaking white-tailed eagles remind of “flying carpets“.
A flying brown carpet is a description somehow more polite than the German one, where we say "Fliegendes Brett": flying plank, referring to the form of the spread wings.
Is the flying carpet only said in Estonian or is it used in English as well?

NB: Elms are not very common here. I cannot remember having seen one or may be I haven't recognized it.
And the foxes are shy, you may see tracks in fresh snow, but in day times you only see them here during the mating period. Maybe this is because of lots of hunters around.

[alice44]

I miss my elm so much! Elms are just the perfect real tree shape. But I miss it not for it's flowers or even its shape, its shade kept my house about 4-5 degrees c cooler in summer. When it is 39c outside that makes a big difference.


I have been thinking about the flying squirrels. Here we had a big too do about Spotted Owls, which are disappearing. They were blamed -- their disappearance and restrictions -- for the end of the forest industry. Of course it was more complicated. Even the corporate mergers of the 80s were part of the problem -- companies ended up over harvesting to pay off debt and then much of the old growth very profitable trees were gone. Anyhow Spotted Owls live almost exclusively in old growth forests and they got all the press, but the reason they live in old growth forests is that their primary prey is flying squirrels.

And now, even though much of the remaining old growth forests are protected the Spotted Owls are disappearing because their areas are being taken over by Barred Owls. Barred Owls eat a wider variety of food and aren't made nervous by human presence.

But I never hear how the squirrels are doing.

[Jo UK]

Liis, yes, we understand "flying carpet"

In relation to Sea Eagles, the British description of "Like barn doors" is more common, but whatever the description, it means that these eagles take up an awful lot of space!

[Liis]

Liis, yes, we understand "flying carpet"

In relation to Sea Eagles, the British description of "Like barn doors" is more common, but whatever the description, it means that these eagles take up an awful lot of space!

Thanks, Jo!
An inner voice squeaked - or was there a pricking of my thumbs? - when I wrote that carpet, but I brutally slammed it down, no time to check ...
Barn door does make for a better image, in my mind at least: something large and squarish up there. Carpet is too billowy.

[Liis]

Teachers, dresses and what more?

In English the great tit calls "teacher, teacher" http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/9239. In Estonian it is "Sitsikleit" - are they planning what to wear for summer? - and now we know in Spanish too: check the Spanish page!

What do they talk about where you live?
While worrying about what to do with the Estonian tits' "Sitsikleit" (dictionaries are not very helpful) this rather entertaining page about onomatopoetics and bird sounds http://www.writtensound.com/birds.htm came up. I also learned that the great tits in the world have about 40 different "languages".

But please Estonian forum members - what kind of material is "sits" really? Does anyone wear a "sitsikleit" any longer?

[leonia]

Tits in Germany are calling: tsitsidae, tsitsidae, tsitsidae, tsit. But that has no hidden meaning.
"Sitsikleit", the Estonian call, includes a loanword from German "Kleid" (dress).
"Teacher" would be "Lehrer" in German, but I cannot imagine tits calling "Lehrer, Lehrer", at most they could call "leerer, leerer" which means something is getting more and more empty; may be the birdfeeder?

[Liis]

There is an Estonian great tit twittering away In the video with nature man Henrik Relve in the call for winter garden bird surveyors http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/9279 - yes, it might - just - say "sitsi-kleit".
Nice drawings of common Estonian winter birds on the garden survey home page, http://www.eoy.ee/talv/Maaramine.html. Estonian names only, but we always have the Multilingual Birdsearch Engine. A little misleading, really - one doesn't search for birds, but their names, but a wonderful tool all the same, and quick and easy to use.

[Arvi]

But please Estonian forum members - what kind of material is "sits" really? Does anyone wear a "sitsikleit" any longer?

sits - calico

At least I hope it's right answer - I have never encountered this English word before and I trusted several online dictionaries here.

'Sits' is cheap thin cotton linen, often brightly coloured.

[leonia]

http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/9295

I was very pleased to see the portrait of such a true beauty! A delicate face, dainty little mouth, bright blue eyes, and a really lovely facial expression!

[Liis]

Arvi - thank you for calico and sitsikleit!
I did think of calico but somehow got the (false) impression that it was too coarse to be "sits". Calico seems to have dropped out of fashion long before sitsikleits disappeared - if they have done so?

Leonia: elms ...
Elms unusual in Germany? But - Stadt Ulm? or is it not Ulm as in elm trees? By the way, Einstein was born in Ulm.

Alice - still elms:
They are absolutely magnificent in the background of English landscape paintings. But they are so very typically "trees" that it makes them somehow anonymous, unpersonal if a tree can be so. Except as said when the purple flowers (stamens really) are out and those lovely green rosettes of unripe seeds (nice-tasting in a salad too). Later of course the streets are full of ripe seeds, like rattling snowdrifts. I have at least one favourite - but it seems to have some "weeping" genes, so not the typical elm silhouette.

[alice44]

Liis
I laughed, my town is thick with Sweet Gums (although 2 of my 4 have been removed and 3 of the 5 across the street have been removed and I do miss them), which are so un-tree like and just nasty that the elms seem a wonder. Although recently I have struck by some big oaks that look like a puff-ball on stick. I should see if I can capture that on camera, or if it is in my head.

Sweet Gum (Liquid Amber)
This is a rather pretty one, the branches are as likely to grow down as up




Calico is commonly used in traditional quilting -- as the term is used to today, in the US, the print is often some what small, often floral and often shades of one colour -- tone on tone. They are not particularly coarse in terms of thread count -- a typical over under even weave cloth. I think Calico has to be or should be 100% cotton.