An international photography contest, dedicated to historical sacred natural sites, is commencing. The goal of the contest is to commemorate the cultural and natural heritages of sacred natural sites, to record their current state, as well as to encourage people to visit and care for the sacred sites.

The theme of the contest is historical, natural (not built) sacred sites: sacred groves and hills, water bodies, trees, stones and other natural objects where our ancestors used to pray, heal, sacrifice, commune and perform other rituals.

Photo Arne Ader

Translation Liis

Caraway

Caraway    Harilik köömen         Carum carvi

The biennial caraway plants flower modestly everywhere with small elegant inflorescences in umbels.

In Estonia they are quite common but keep close to humans and grow in biotopes influenced by humans – near settlements or farms, in meadows, the verges of roads … 

The stem of the plant is shorter and thinner than that of other umbellates, growing only some tens of centimetres high in poor growing conditions and less than a metre in favourable ones – so it is difficult in autumn to find the places where caraway grows for collecting caraway seeds.

Image from webcam captured by  Birdfriend, LK forum
Translation Liis

Male feeding the storklets

Black stork     Must-toonekurg        Ciconia nigra

The interruption in transmission lasted for a couple of days; from Wednesday the system works again and transmits data to us.

Text and photos  Urmas Tartes
Translation Liis

Female house mosquito (Culex pipiens) emerging from pupa 

Can mosquitoes be regarded as friends? My answer is – Yes. A friend is somebody who will never deceive you, whom you can trust. Mosquitoes never deceive. If a ”lean” female mosquito flies around you, you know exactly what she wants. When you see a mosquito with a bulging red abdomen however, you know that for at least week it will not bother you. If a male mosquito with a high-pitched fine whine happens to fly around you, you are uninteresting to him.