The Stories Behind the Pictures

[terrytvgal]

And it my cat celebrates New Year!
I wanted to open new thread in an order to tell about our home animals, but I do not have this license to do :
"... You cannot post new topics in this forum
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What a good idea. I'm sure Jo or someone will be happy to give us a place to talk about our pets.

[Jo UK]

Yes, certainly! I will do it this morning and start with laveda's cat! I think there will be a flood of member's animal pics.
There are my three Burmese, for a start!

[Jasmijn]

Nice this forum, I like to share the follwing picture with you;
(it's Tommy, one of my 4 Persian cats) who look together with me at the birds in de feeder.)
When the birds fly away he and his sister look behind the PC-screen to tried to find them there

[Jo UK]

If you want, you could put that post and picture in Conversations.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=53&start=50

It is a topic for our important animals, whether they are pets, working aniumals, neighbours, or whatever

[yarko]

i have a picture , but don't have the story - pic' is not taken by me.
everyone can use his/her imagination and work out why did it happen

[Jo UK]

I think the fox tried to steal some eggs, or chicks. Then along came an angry parent. Fox looks frightened, and keen to get away now.
Anyway, he looks guilty!

[Liis]

I think the fox tried to steal some eggs, or chicks. Then along came an angry parent. Fox looks frightened, and keen to get away now.
Anyway, he looks guilty!

Wonderful picture!
Jo - inspiration from this egg-collecting fox story? http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.ht ... _page_id=2

[Jo UK]

Thanks Liis. What a good story. Who can blame a mother for getting food for her young ones? We know that everything eats everything else, and there was a great picture and story to illustrate that.

[verlit]

This is part of our “family pack” which consists of six cats and two dogs.
The black dog on the picture – her name is Zara – we got from a local animal shelter. The shelter workers were trying to put us off taking a big adult dog to the family full of cats, saying the dog will attack cats for sure. I have many years of experience with animals, including voluntary work in various shelters, so I know the key is in cat´s behaviour. If cat does not run, dog does not chase. Knowing our lazy cats, who are used to dogs and don´t move a whisker when dog sniffs them, I was sure it will be allright and we took Zara home.

I think you can judge for yourselves, if we were right

[Jo UK]

Thanks, verlit.
They look very happy together. Yes, that is right about the "It's running, I must chase it" response!

[Ricky]

Here it is, the story of what happened on my trip:

To make everything understandable I have to start with a long story a few years ago in 2004: At that time I lived near a pond which has a size of about 1 hectare (100 x 100 metres) in Northern Germany. The distance between my house an the water line was about 15 metres.
On this pond a big „family“ of mallards lived. During the summer most of our meals where taken outside in the garden. The ducks soon noticed that they also get something if they come. So we mostly ate together (they got corn, we ate hour normal meals). When weather turned colder they still got something to eat although we weren´t eating ouside any more of course.
In the following year (2005) there were nearly 20 chicks. 3 of them didn´t grow as fast as the others and one of these was always too late for everything. It came to eat when some of the others had already finished. So it was called „Schlafmütze“ which means „sleepy head“. She (it is a female) always got some more food if the others didn´t leave anything left for her. We all loved her most of all the mallards because of her dozy and trusty behaviour. And she seemed to notice our sympathy and became more and more tame. In the autumn we lost the contact the her for a while. But on a sunny winter morning – the door to the garden was openend – some mallard sounds got to my ear. And it was Schlafmütze standing on the stairs and begging for food – I was really affected. Of course she got her food and also visited regularly in the future.
Soon she also had a mate. But they didn´t breed in that year (2006). Everything went on normally. She got her food daily and also started feeding straight out of the hand and sometimes we also could stroke her. In the morning they walked into the bedroom and woke us up (there was a door from to bedroom to the garden which was opened. Often when you went from one room to another you suddenly saw Schlafmütze (often with her mate) walking around there. It was both great and funny.
In 2007 she had a new mate. There was something characteristical about him: His white band on his throat was very thin and short. That way he was able to be recognized quite easily. And it also made it easier to recognize Schlafmütze because she didn´t have anything special – apart of a very chubby head which made her look very cute. In that year I started studying the mallards even more – probably because I knew that it would be the last year we could spend with „our“ ducks because we were planning to move to Austria. That way a noticed some other „special“ ducks. There was one drake without a white band. His partner (She was named „Kathi“) had quite an angular head. There also was a female duck whith a broad white-rosy coulored stipe above her eyes. She was called „Augenstreif“ which means „eye-stripe“. And there was a duck with a nearly completely orange beak. She was called „Orange“. The time went soon and suddenly – in June - Schlafmütze was only seen very seldom. We wondered where she might be and one day I found her sitting on her eggs in our neighbours´ garden. We all were happy. In the beginning of July the nest was empty and none of us did ever see her cicks. And also Schlafmütze herself didn´t come any more apart of maybe one or two times in the beginning of July. We didn´t know what happened to her and her family but hoped they were well of course. There are some more ponds in the neighborhood so there was a good possibility that she was there. Than it was time to leave for Austria (mid of July). I have to admit that it was a hard decision for me to do so because of our winged friends. And it needed some time to manage living without them. The wish to see them again stayed. But you can´t drive about 1000km for that reason. We agreed on that we would visit them as soon as there was the chance to.


Nothing happened until the end of January 2009. I got a phone call that a consulting for an investment was needed – not far away from „our“ mallards. Soon it was decided to drive a bit further than it was neccessary for the normal buisness trip. I put about 20 kilos of corn in the car as a "present" for our featered friends. On Saturday we arrived and the whole pond was frozen apart of a small area where about 50 mallards were keeping the water open. When they saw our car stopping they flew out of the water to beg for food. Although they were a bit jumpy – I think they didn´t really recognize us, but actually I had expected that they wouldn´t – they were as hungry as we know them. We all hoped to see some of the named ducks and hoped that we were able the recognize them after 19 month. Then suddenly I saw a drake without a white band and next to him – who was feeding there? – Kathi! Most mallards had come out of the water and some were still walking on the ice. Then there was a duck with a chubby head. I wasn´t sure if it was her but when I watched the mate walking next to her I was sure. It was – as always much too late – Schlafmütze. Maybe you can imagine how happy we all were. Seeing old friends again after a long time is always a special moment. Also Augenstreif came a bit later and enjoyed the food as all the others. At last a young Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) joined the group.
It was great to see that both female ducks didn´t change there mates. Although mallards live in some kind of monogamy they change there mates sometimes as Schlafmütze also had done earlier.
We promised to visit again when there´s the next chance to do.

I´ll add some pics from 2007:
1.: female duck with chicks
2.: Schlafmütze
3.: Kathi

[verlit]

Here it is, the story of what happened on my trip:

What a great story! And with happy ending, too

[Liis]

Hello, Ricky - great story!
About Schlafmützchen - you know about thoughts wandering away ...:
Schlafmütze = Estonian "unimüts" = Swedish "sömntuta". Which (sömntuta) also happens to be the Swedish name of Escholtzia californica, California poppy, the state flower of California (late to open, early to close ...), very pretty annual garden flower. Which was named in honour of Johann Friedrich von Escholtz, 1793-1831, German-Russian-Estonian ... (Balto-German??) professor at Tartu, member of the expedition to America when the Escholtzia was "officially" seen & named.
So, the long & short of it: maybe a name for a Schlafmütze child - Eschi ?

[NancyM]

Ricky, thank you for that story! It must have been wonderful to see your special ducks and tp know that they were well.

[Ricky]

Thank you all!

Liis, wow what a story behind a name. And in some 100 years everybody will be wondering where that name has its real roots.

[Liis]

wow what a story behind a name.

Yes, isn't it - you never know where you end up with Looduskalender!
I will always think of your birds and Pig Cam now, when the Escholtzia seed packets turn up in the shops.
But there is a small twist - or two - more in that tail: the famous, or infamous, Bikini islands were once Escholtz Islands, named after the same E.
So, Ricky - whenever you see a nice bikini on the beach this summer you can think of Escholtz and Schlafmütze ...

[okaskera]

Sorry, story deleted, had to make space im my ftp site.

[Kuremari]

Great pictures and story, okaskera!
badgers and raccoon dogs shearing a living space - that`s new?!
thank you so much!

[AllyKass]

it was intresting read and watch! raccoon dogs in daylight... are so...with bad fur... but badgers are so cool
thanks for story

[NancyM]

wonderful! I am glad that yarko kept pushing for this story, the info and pictures are fascinating. Thank you very much!

and many thanks to Liis for the translation