looduskalender.ee

The sparrow at least seemed to enjoy itself and the attention in the photo in Macdoum's original BBC report link

The check animal tracks in your mobile (LK front page) seems to be a popular application idea. A great number from various sources turned up when I googled it.

Has anyone used one?

Some more about the background to the Estonian project http://blog.ut.ee/digital-plant-wizards/

Found while hunting for some help about vocabulary
"Remember that most animals lie up during the day and move about at night" ...

Birds, birders, traces, tracks & Midsomer murders:

" A Rare Bird", one of the latest instalments, has birdwatchers, birders, twitchers, ornithologists as background to the murder plot. That rare bird is a blue-crested hoopoe ...

Jo UK http://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/viewtopic.php?p=122554#p122554
"In the summer, I may take a trip to Midsomer, just to see if there is anyone left alive there!"
Only 140 murdered, as a matter of fact, according to Internet somewhere ...

The murders are continuing in Midsomer.. but Insp. Barnaby is still on retirement. Seems they have to continue without him.

German TV had something in connection with birds and birdwatchers (at a first glance when I turned off TV) as well, yesterday, I have taped it for "further watching" since I could not watch it. Just checked, if I found the right one, it is called "Birds of prey".

Oh dear - the elk/moose (melk? kmoose? ) season is open again ... http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/12170
As before I will staunchly stay in the dwindling Alces alces = elk minority
Admittedly, feels a bit like the English king (which?) who sat on the beach and refused to give in to the tide water ...

Some 100 000 elks are shot in Sweden each year, 2 or 3 times that number will still be left after the hunting season.
Just under 6000 traffic accidents involving elks were reported in 2011. About 30 000 with roe deer, but an elk accident is much more serious for driver, passengers and car.
A proposal to splash luminous paint from paintball guns on elks to make them better visible in the dark made the news this autumn ...

I saw something on TV about elks and the problems they create (in Scandinavia) and they said, it'll keep growing, because the hunters usually shoot only male elks and that causes the female population to grow (and the males have bigger and bigger harems). But like that the problems they create - they showed pictures of elks crossing the roads, inside cities and villages, shops and houses - also grow! Because all in all the populations grows.

when I read moose, I think back on the two who had fallen trough the ice
February 11th, 2010
almost two years ago, time flies

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=81&start=4020

I like the paintball idea -- much better than birth control in food drops like they were talking about for deer on the east coast of the US.

My friend who learned how to drive in Alaska -- her brother said don't worry about hitting anything -- as in don't go into the wrong lane or slam on the brakes so you will slide on the ice for anything smaller than a moose, but moose you need to work to avoid!

Liis,I have to submit this subject for further study.
In Scotland 'neeps' are eaten regulary but are 'speially on the menu for Burn's night.
Does anyone have an opinion ?..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... -or-turnip

(its a good article anyway )

Oh dear. Oh. Oops.
Another pillar of terminology gone ...
But thank you, Macdoum, I am so glad professional writers too get into these quandaries, and slither deeper and deeper in verbal & factual mazes!
In Sweden - the name-giver if not origin of one of the things - rovor, ie turnips, were what you grew and ate before potatoes and swedes were invented. After kålrot, ie swedes, swept the market, turnips were just possibly grown as cattle fodder. That is, until modern cuisine started looking for native exotics, like lichens, bark bread, turnips.
Swedes are yellow-fleshed, skin is dirty-yellow with more or less of red or bluish-purple or green.

PS. Swede is said to be short for "Swedish turnip". And Swedish Wikipedia says swedes were long known in French as "chou de Siam" ...
Oh, Swedish Wikipedia says too that swedes probably originated in the Nordic countries, then spread from Scotland after being introduced there, and probably are a cross between cabbage and turnip.
So neeps can be swedes or turnips, but they are turnips anyway. Sort of.

...... That settles it... sort of...

Winter garden bird watch (or count or survey ...) http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/12242
in UK too. A selection of expected UK guests HERE
Click on photos for more images.
The UK crow is black - carrion crow. Before Looduskalender I assumed that all crows were hooded, never knew that "common crows" in Europe could differ ...

Interesting that in the world is also butterfly "common crow"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euploea_core

That address is a marvel Liis GREAT LINK
http://www.digitalwildlife.co.uk/gardenbirds/index.htm

It might be fun if people who made a list for the backyard bird observation posted it in
the Birds Birds Birds thread viewtopic.php?f=30&t=281&start=180

Do you know if the name refers to the bird crow, or is it another word similar to the bird name, or ...?

@Alice
Great idea!
Quote:
It might be fun if people who made a list for the backyard bird observation posted it in the Birds Birds Birds thread viewtopic.php?f=30&t=281&start=180

Oh dear!
When I first went to Estonia I saw these BIG birds - grey and black. I had to ask "What bird is that?"
My companion gave me a strange look (obviously thinking "What - you don't know?"
and told me it's a crow.
I am used to the much smaller, all black version of our carrion crow.
Hoodies occur in Scotland, but not in the south.

Is the Carrion Crow really smaller?

I remember when I lived in Victoria there were supposedly two crows -- the Common Crow and a smaller coastal crow, but I am not sure I was ever sure which one I was seeing.

According to wikipedia data Common (American) crow is a little bit smaller than Carrion and Hooded crow. In USA eastern coast lives another species - Fish Crow. It's smaller than Common Crow and has different voice.

Burbot, Est. luts (Lota lota) http://www.looduskalender.ee/node/12307 - interesting fish indeed.
Other name, lawyer, said to be due to the slipperiness ...

It can be caught (used to be?) by clubbing : you go out on a lake with clear ice, it may be in the dark with a torch to attract the fish. When you see one under the ice, you hit the ice so it is stunned, for long enough to have time to drill a hole and take it out. The technique was made a little easier by the fact that the fish looked for old ice holes with new thin ice = more oxygen in water.
Never done it, only heard about it. Any fishermen on the forum?

A more conventional technique was/is to sit in a little shed on the ice, with a hole in the ice floor, a lure, a stove, coffee and some more to eat and drink ...

Burbot liver is said to be a delicacy too, very rich in Vitamin A. However - "unfortunately the liver may hold parasites, but if those are removed before cooking the liver is perfectly edible " (Swedish Wikipedia) ...

EDIT: you might think just hitting the ice with a club shouldn't have much effect on a fish. They may be more sensitive to pressure waves, the pressure changes may be stronger and carry easier in water.
"Fishing" by throwing a stick of dynamite into water is well known; illegal of course. Great amounts of fish, stunned or dead, float up.