Ideas from the Front Page

[Liis]

Urmas Tartes's tips on photographing bumblebees
http://www.looduskalender.ee/node/24130
is very late in translation indeed.
But like a great wine, let us hope Urmas's text has just got better meanwhile.
The translation was basically ready in time, but phototalk not being my subject, many expressions needed checking, other things got in between and eventually the bumblebees themselves closed shop for the year.
This year I realised that a bumblebee is in 99 out of 100 my discarded photos, that is, it is just not there.
So here are Urmas Tartes's tips, and his photos with a level of technique and content that we can only dream of.

[Liis]

About the Hypericums, from Finnish Naturegate (also in English, Swedish, often French, Spanish, German )
"Perforate St John’s-wort ... was formerly used to make Fuga daemoniumia – devil chaser – to treat depression, but the cure was often worse than the disease as it was administered in large doses and the patient often died" .

Simple way to distinguish the perforate St John's wort from others: rub a leaf, or better, flower bud on a light surface. If it leaves a purple streak it is the perforate one.

[Liis]

ETV video about great tit investigations (see main page article)
Just in case you are a little shocked by the bird in the ETV video link image, on its back, legs upwards, on the palm of the investigator - it is a quite happy bird who enjoyed its moment there, and happily flew away

[Felis silvestris]

About frost flowers - http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/26053
I am a little bit surprised about content of the text, I know Karl Ander Adami through Osoon, where they regularly have him introducing interesting birds, bees or plants, and as nature photographer through Facebook and other sources. A young man in his early twenties, I would have guessed. And in the article it is written:

... with frost flowers on digging among grandmothers postcards when I was a child. Now, a grandparent myself, I have wanted to capture the frost flowers myself

The link on the page leads to the gallery I know, so I am a bit puzzled about the "grandfather". Is there a second, older Karl Ander Adami?

This ERR news article says he's 23 years old in 2014 ...

[Hellem]

About frost flowers - ....

There is mistake in translation, in Estonian version the word is vanemana, older in English.

must be ...now, an older myself...

[Liis]

Any experts on plant origins and spreading here?
In the text about Butterbur on front page it is said to have come to Estonia from New Zealand, and presumably from the text following, already before the Middle Ages.
It might of course have come meandering across Siberia and whatever else.
In many languages its name refers to a hope that it might be an antidote to the plague: katkujuur, pestskråp, pestilensrot. It does however, it seems, contain relaxing compounds that might have helped in case of convulsions.
The English name butterbur refers to the use of the enormous leaves as wrappers for butter.
It is a rather fascinating and strange plant.

[unp]

...said to have come to Estonia from New Zealand...

Wikipedia says: Petasites hybridus, the butterbur, is native to central Europe, extending from the British Isles to the Caucasus, and from southern Italy north to southern Scandinavia. It is present as an introduced species in North America.
See also text, map and a list with references.
Must have been strong winds from New Zealand in ancient times... or a mistake somewhere...

[Liis]

Butterbur's way to Estonia
Completely uncorroborated idea: from just simply Zeeland, Zealand, Själland somewhere, e g in the Netherlands or Denmark, quite probably via monasteries.
After all parts of Estonia have belonged to Denmark.
New Zealand became at some time more familiar and more interesting, and so butterbur changed origins, to New Zealand.
Just speculation!
As for today, Finnish Naturegate (Luontoportti) for instance has Common Butterbur , Japanese butterbur, Wooly(?) Butterbur

[unp]

Butterbur's way to Estonia
Completely uncorroborated

It's a rare author that would be reluctant to help a translator find out what's wrong with the text. Besides, readers of the front page - or any other page - would expect to get information that has been checked instead of having to solve a mystery

[Liis]

It's a rare author that would be reluctant to help a translator find out what's wrong with the text. Besides, readers of the front page - or any other page - would expect to get information that has been checked instead of having to solve a mystery

Hmmm.
Yes. Basically. But.
I can't be the only one having some doubts about New Zealand's medieval contacts and transactions with Europe?
So have all kept silent until there is an impeccable answer? Does everybody in fact have it?
"Solving problems is just a way of widening your sphere of question marks ad infinitum" a course supervisor airily told me when a lab experiment refused to come out as it should (4th explanation attempt finally seemed to hold, and I had run out of time to test it anyway)

[unp]

... question marks ad infinitum...

By way of example, Wikipedia has referencing rules, inter alia,
sources are required for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged – if reliable sources cannot be found for challenged material, it is likely to be removed from the article.
Of course, LK is not Wikipedia. And, of course, fact checking is not a translator's job