Ideas from the Front Page

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alice44
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Re: Ideas from the Front Page

Post by alice44 »

I enjoyed both the bear and bird feeding articles.

I have always thought about how much impact humans have on the available food for birds so backyard feeding made sense -- but I guess even in semi-urban areas we need to think about nest sites too.

And the dratted cats -- somehow this year somewhere in my area some ground nesting birds seem to have reared a clutch through to fledging -- maybe there are more dogs and less cats. I don't know how they did it but I am impressed.
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Post by leonia »

I just read the article "Telling us that they are there" (Brit translated to German), http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/8609.

Nearly every day there is one and the same great tit knocking at my kitchen window pane with her beak. But why? In the article there is told that they use beaks and claws to knock on the windowsill to get insects. O.k., this is understandable. But why does one special tit knock at the pane? Has anyone any idea? :puzzled:
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Post by Jo UK »

What fun!

I suppose a biologist might call it a local adaptation. What happens after the bird knocks on the window? Does it get food?
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Post by Mew »

Is it dependent on one bird that can see its reflection in the window? :peek:
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macdoum
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Post by macdoum »

Mew wrote:Is it dependent on one bird that can see its reflection in the window? :peek:
I had the very same happen here last spring,every day the blue tit came for about 10 days,then it started bringing nest-making grasses in its beak.. :puzzled: ?
It used to hover just at the window pane.
I wrote about that here somewhere at the time..then one day it gave up..? I am still wondering too. :D
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Post by leonia »

:rotf: Food is served on the balcony besides the kitchen window!

I thought the tit might possibly not recognize the pain* at all and tries to get inside that supposed balcony as well but the pane there may be an obscure obstacle for it. But this supposition does not explain why only one tit tries to get there. If one could ask him . . . :mrgreen:

PS: I do not believe in a reflection phenomenon because it's the same effect either when the window is clean or not or when it is sunny weather or very cloudy.

Edit: not the pain, but the pane!
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Post by Liis »

Some tit has probably once learnt that the pecking is useful: either an insect is caught or a friendly human appears ... Wonder how long it takes to "unlearn"? But maybe there are individuals who really look for company - or like to look at themselves and play a bit?

The milk bottles in England and great tits is a rather famous episode of bird behaviour learning; from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Tit:

Great Tits combine dietary versatility with a considerable amount of intelligence and the ability to solve problems with insight learning, that is to solve a problem through insight rather than trial and error.[7] In England, Great Tits learned to break the foil caps of milk bottles delivered at the doorstep of homes to obtain the cream at the top.[21] This behaviour, first noted in 1921, spread rapidly in the next two decades.[22] In 2009, Great Tits were reported killing and eating pipistrelle bats. This is the first time a songbird has been seen to hunt bats. The tits only do this during winter when the bats are hibernating and other food is scarce.[23] They have also been recorded using tools, using a conifer needle in the bill to extract larvae from a hole in a tree.[7]
I don't think it is one of the many Internet myths - heard of it before the Internet - but I didn't know the behaviour was so old.

Is any milk still delivered to the doorstep in UK? Perfectly homogenised milk might have made the pecking less rewarding too - no more cream on top. :innocent:
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Post by leonia »

Hello Liis, no internet myth, because I once have seen a picture of it.

Today I had the tit's visit as often. It flew from the railing on the windowsill (it's seventh floor) up againt the windowpane, knocking with its beak against it. It looked like it wanted to get inside the same way it does when entering the balkony aside. Seemes that German tits are not as clever as British ones :mrgreen:
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Post by Jo UK »

Liis, yes, there are still door-step deliveries of milk, and they have foil caps!

I can't say if the foil tops are pierced by birds, still, because my milk comes from a farm (no door-step involved) I will ask my neighbour whose milk (that grey, watery stuff) is delivered twice a week.

I do remember that our milk was interfered with in that way if it wasn't taken in quickly. Often enough it was left for a couple of hours because the milkman used to do his rounds at about 04.30. The foil caps always had little beak-size holes in them!
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Post by leonia »

On a saturday (Oct. 30) trip by bike we were lucky to see ermines (stoats). Twice my friend told me: shhhh, there is an ermine, so I had the opportunity to watch them with binoculars. One had just caught a vole, ten minutes later the other one showed us his wonderful shape in ful length in the sun.
So the article http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/8621 (weasel's change of coat) was just appropriate to translate. The ermines we saw were still in their summer coat. We have to go to this place near by in winter too, may be we are lucky to see them again in their white winter coat.
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Post by Liis »

How wonderful, Leonia! I think I have only seen a weasel once in my life, and never an ermine. BTW, does anyone else have difficulties in keeping the ferrets, polecats, martens, weasels apart?
They are wonderful at keeping mice and voles away; a long time ago when people still had winter stores of potatoes even in the city, some professional "rodent-hunters" kept ferrets or weasels to let loose in the cellars.

About the departing swans http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/8709: In Estonian, Swedish, German ... the whooper swan has the much more romantic name "singing swan". I think the realistic (?) English-speakers have a point! Wikipedia describes it as the "Eurasian counterpart of the North American Trumpeter swan". Singing, whooping or trumpeting?
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Post by Liis »

Ooops! :blush: :blush:
Shrikes were shrieks http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/8740, for a while.
Thanks, Jo, for noticing and telling!
Although the shrieks would have made a quite nice Halloween story ...

EDIT, PS: Shrike and shriek have the same origin, as words. "Skrik" is still scream in Swedish. The shrikes are supposed to be shrieking - don't know, haven't hear one.
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Post by leonia »

Hello Liis,
I found one example for the call of the Grey Shrike flying off:
http://www.soundarchiv.com/Geraeusche/D ... eim_Abflug
:dunno:
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Post by Liis »

Thank you, Leonia! - Not very shrieky, was it?
I found another recording, quite similar; they differentiated between song (described as containing various melodious trills) and call. The call was "A harsh shek-shek, grating jaaeg, rapid rasping aak...aak, a sharp metallic beek (from http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Great_Grey_Shrike ) :innocent:
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Post by Liis »

The recommended reading about cats: http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/8749
Protest from a cat lover :innocent: seeing more cats than foxes or raccoon dogs around roads and roadside fields when driving by doesn't really say that there are many more cats overall. Cats - even stray or wild cats - keep to settlements and openl landscapes, foxes and raccoon dogs are basically forest animals, and shy animals at that.
I have met many foxes, but never a cat deep in a large forest - have you? Arguments should lbe fair - meeoouw!

And among the millions of thinga that cats eat there is surely a good number of rats, mice, voles too ...
Once I read that if you killed a good "mouser" cat in medieval England you had to pay the owner an amount of grain that covered the cat, held by its tail, from the ground to the tip of the tail!
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Post by macdoum »

Meouuwww.. ! :D
Carmel a member of SHOW .. I hope you love birds too. Its economical. It saves going to heaven.
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Post by Jo UK »

Liis, I had not heard of that medieval custom before now!

Cats are popular here, but the majority are indoors pets - at least, in town.
Mine are free to go out if they want, but in these temperatures, they don't want!
I don't recall seeing cats wandering around the countryside.
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Post by Liis »

Jo UK wrote:Liis, I had not heard of that medieval custom before now!

Cats are popular here, but the majority are indoors pets - at least, in town.
Mine are free to go out if they want, but in these temperatures, they don't want!
I don't recall seeing cats wandering around the countryside.
When I tried to check the source now, what comes up are the Gwentian and Dimetian codes which are medieval (or earlier?) Welsh - apologies to all Welsh members! Referred for instance here http://www.bartleby.com/234/6.html (from The tiger in the house, Ch. 6, The cat and the law)
I still seem to remember reading about the cat penalty in a rather classic history of England. Maybe my notes turn up somewhere!
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Post by macdoum »

Liis wrote:When I tried to check the source now, what comes up are the Gwentian and Dimetian codes which are medieval (or earlier?) Welsh - apologies to all Welsh members! Referred for instance here http://www.bartleby.com/234/6.html (from The tiger in the house, Ch. 6, The cat and the law)
I still seem to remember reading about the cat penalty in a rather classic history of England. Maybe my notes turn up somewhere!
What a wealth of law inforcment edicts that have gone on through the ages. Its fascinating and funny. Good ol' cat :D may you forever endure. !! :thumbs:
Carmel a member of SHOW .. I hope you love birds too. Its economical. It saves going to heaven.
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Post by Liis »

Hello, Leonia, and all who read the front-page articles
Oh-oh-oh - our backyard potterer is showing his mettle. Or rather his author's, Tiit Kändler's.
From nice harmless backyard thoughts we get thrown into the nature of light, speculations on cold as a possible quantum phenomenon, Magritte horses on the Estonian dunes, Rembrant red as the colour of November ... http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/8858

But doesn't our potterer seem a tiny bit blood-thirsty - cutting up darkness with a knife in November, throwing axes at cranes in October?

About karask, the barley bread that Õueonu puts into the oven: I have always believed it was a fairly basic thing, somewhat like Irish soda bread. But a Google search revealed all kinds of sophisticated variations with mushrooms and cheese, raisins, sugar ...
A video showing how to make karask should be available from here http://www.maaturism.ee/index.php/index ... onalratter
Karask with cranberry sauce (hmmm?) here http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Karask

Looking forward to Õueonu's further adventures! :2thumbsup:
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