looduskalender.ee

Awww Liis,they are beautifully printed with various scenes,even recipes for ex; Irish soda bread or stew,cats birds and dogs prevelant. I have a whole collection waiting to be hung up. I tried to get son to have them... wasn't interested. I've not enough walls.
Now I know the work that went into the making of..

Liis' mice had a wondeful winter,once upon a time.

Nice illustration to eating humble pie
Those black grouse http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/12455 are of course black grouse and nothing else.

I will not repeat what I called them. Except that the grouse, Estonian teder, Tetrao tetrix, is orre in Swedish, whereas Swedish tjäder, capercaillie, Tetrao urogallus, is metsis.
But somebody in Estonian-Swedish relations, in very far-off times, seems to have mixed up their birds too...

Sadly, no seal camera although seal season is announced http://www.looduskalender.ee/node/12518

Seal season also means ice vocabulary season .
Swedish meteorological institute happily writes about plate (as in plateful of soup) ice, pancake ice, rotten ice, ridges, hummocks ... A selection of Baltic sea ice types and codes HERE for aficionados.
In English fast as in fast ice is probably one of the few contexts where fast has its Nordic (?) meaning of solid, attached to instead of the usual quick (or abstaining from food).
Wherever from did those three different meanings come to meet?

I think I may not say, but I still miss them

Stuck fast
colour fast
hold fast

I cannot find much information on the origins

[Middle English, from Old English fæst, firm, fixed; see past- in Indo-European roots.]

maybe related to faithful

Fast asleep first used 1555 and where I found that I found "from the Old German 'fest', meaning 'stuck firmly'; 'not easily moveable' - as in 'stuck fast'"

And
Wikipedia which seriously (alice stop lying) knows everything says
"Fast ice (land-fast ice, landfast ice, and shore-fast ice) is sea ice that has frozen along coasts ("fastened" to them) along the shoals, or to the sea floor over shallow parts of the continental shelf, and extends out from land into sea. In Antarctica, fast ice may also extend between grounded icebergs. Unlike drift ice (or "pack ice"), it does not move with currents and wind."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_ice

Over the course of a year there is hardly any kind of topic that I do not learn something about here at looduskalender.ee

When I saw the first ice reports about the Baltic Sea I also wondered about the many different kinds of ice are mentioned there. Ever since I find it interesting to follow what is going on there and look into them whenever I get the chance. I also admired the different names they have for the ice!

Some more winter - while it still lasts:
Snowpersons - The Potterer's Diary http://www.looduskalender.ee/node/12537
After some discussion I think we agreed a few years ago that Estonian snowpersons are snow-mums, while English and Swedish ones, for instance, are snowmen.

Any more contributions to the gender study?

PS. First cranes have arrived in Central Sweden, at Hornborgasjön. There will eventually be some 12 000 of them for the great crane "dances" (record year, 2009: 18 500). A web camera is promised.

About roe deer bucks and their antlers, http://www.looduskalender.ee/node/12572: more to read HERE. A very readable and knowledgeable text.

Mathematics and black woodpeckers
Is a 3 times heavier woodpecker heavier than 3 times as heavy?

I would say three times heavier but
three times as heavy is also in use.

What I hate is the oxymoron of "twenty times smaller than --"
Times is a multiplying, increasing word, while smaller is to diminish something.
I just like to rant!

But ...
if woodpecker A weighs A kilos, and woodpecker B is 3 times heavier - it could be read as
B = A +3xA = 4xA kilos

Whereas 3 times as heavy
B = 3xA kilos

Oh
I had not thought of multiplying A's weight then adding more weight again.
A new thought.
Common usage is for "three times heavier than" ,
If A is 2 kilos (unlikely for a woodpecker, but we have to introduce numbers here!) and B is three times heavier, then B must be 6 kilos.

As far as I know, "three times as heavy" has the same meaning. For reasons I no longer remember, the English teacher at school would NOT have approved of "three times as heavy"
Sorry

The black woodpecker is said to weigh 300-400 grams (Wikipedia and other sources).
So the great spotted woodpecker weighs only 100 grams or a little more.
I never imagined that they were so lightweight.
At 3-6 kilos, WTEs are 30+ times the weight of a spotted woodpecker ... A raven weighs 1,2 kilos, a hooded crow just 0,5.

Our main page birder friend Margus Ots has been meeting cranes in a foggy Saaremaa.
The web cameras looking at the cranes around Lake Hornborgasjön, Sweden, are up and running. Some 15 000 cranes at least are expected to the great displays, and of course hordes of watchers. Humans don't seem to frighten the cranes off, though.
It is said that cranes originally started gathering on what were then fields for potato cultivation (as material for producing Swedish snaps and vodka), digging for left-over bits of potatoes. Now food is served to them.

Link to crane webcams (choice of 3 views) HERE

About the lake and surroundings (English) http://projektwebbar.lansstyrelsen.se/hornborga/En/Pages/default.aspx
(Cam link on the page seems to be down at the moment)
Fantastic when "all" birds are there. But of course Looduskalender's web cams are THE BEST, including operators!

PS March 22, 8am: 100-200 cranes in middle cam view.
March 27, 9 am: Many more cranes. Record year 2009: 18 500
March 28, 9 am: More cranes, eating and walking around.
Human visitors: ca 150 000 expected
March 31: Bird counters say there are 17 200 cranes present . See daily statistics HERE
On April 3, 26 500 cranes were there - fewer now (April 7)

Spring. Lovely Easter-colours photo http://www.looduskalender.ee/node/12888... and we are back to the colt's-foot plural quandary: colt's-foots (seeing colt's-foot as a unit), colt's-feet ...
Anyway, the name is rather from the shape of hooves than feet. Oh, one more irregular plural.
Recent research has shown that much colt's-foot is not good for you, it was reported in radio.

Leo, the dictionary I like to consult online, says: coltsfoot - pl. coltsfoots [bot.]

But no Huflattich (again the "hoof" in the name) here right now, we had snow in the morning!
The name, according to Wikipedia, is because of the shape of the leaves, the resemble a hoof.

I used to have primrose (Primula vulgaris) as dictionary test: = Swedish gullviva, "golden primula", (Primula veris) - no good (should be jordviva, "ground primula").
Of course, writing about Mr. Disraeli and the Primrose league = "Jordviveförbundet" would sound rather down to earth. But ... translating back from Gullviveförbundet: Cowslip league? The rather vain Mr. Disraeli would not have been altogether pleased. Nor, I imagine, Queen Victoria whose favourite flowers have been said to be primroses.
To simplify life, I have decided to put my trust regarding plant names in English in Swedish Museum of Natural History's Virtuella floran. Descriptions in Swedish only, but plants searchable by name in any of the 5-6 languages that names are given in, and of course Latin (scientific).
It says Colt's-foot, and I guess plural colt's-feet is more natural then (lots of them: Colts'-feet...?).

Colt's foot. Feet? Something wrong, to my English mind!

Colt's foot is a plant. Ivy or holly is a plant so how do we cope with many hollies? Many ivies? Pansy. Pansies.
One clematis. Many clematis.

In English speech, I would say There are many colt's foot plants there.

Or, There is a lot of Old Man's Beard on that bank.

Rambling - - -

Jo I tend to agree with you as did my mom when I asked.

Alice and Jo - thanks! Of course you are right.
The colt's-foot has progressed from a colt's foot to a plant name and shed its prehistory including pre-grammar. But not perfectly comfortably, it seems

When translating I often feel like protesting: "But I don't think like that in Swedish (English, Estonian)". It is not only a question of different words, it is a different approach to the whole concept.