Text and image Aivar Leito
English translation Liis

Estonian text posted 19.09.2018

Cranes "Soits 1“ and "Soits 2“ have left

When driving to work yesterday morning the Soitsjärve crane family were still at the Elistvere roadside at 6.40 to greet me but at 8 o’clock they left from there on migration as the transmitter data from  “Soits 1“ and “Soits 2“ today show.

Text and photos Aivar Leito
English translation Liis

Estonian text  posted 18.09.2018

Information from Aivar Leito
Photo Arne Ader
English translation Liis

Estonian text posted 17.09.2018

Cranes

Dear Crane Friends!

The migration of the cranes with transmitters  “Aivar“ and “Hauka 3“  who set out early has advanced again.

“Aivar“ again made a long migration leap and late in the evening on September 19 reached the Hortobágy National Park in East Hungary, the same area where he made a long stop last autumn. But then he arrived there almost a month later, on October 10.  Evidently he will stay there for some time now too.

Photo Eero Kiuru
English translation Liis

Estonian text posted 17.09.2018

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Chiff-chaff

The weather for the weekend promised to be changeable but that cannot stop the autumn migration that proceeds at full speed. Millions of birds have already passed us and millions are still on their way to here. The time has arrived when mornings in the garden are again full of  birds and exciting!

The sun rises at about 6.45 now and that is the moment to pick up the binoculars, a hot drink and paper and pencil and settle comfortably in a garden chair. During the next couple of hours you will see and hear some twenty bird species without much bother and maybe even such that you have not met yet this year.

Photos Arne Ader
English translation Liis

Estonian text posted 15.09.2018

Hazel nuts

Common hazel    Harilik sarapuu       Corylus avellana

The bell-shaped and soft husk that encloses hazel nuts is green, velvety and fringed at the edges in summer. There may be up to five one-seeded nuts in a group. By now they are nicely brown. The average diameter of hazelnuts is a couple of centimetres and the weight of a thousand nuts may be estimated at a kilo – or one nut, one gram.

When the kernel or seed (”nut”) cannot be easily loosened from the husk it may almost certainly be predicted that there is no kernel because the nut weevil has laid its eggs in the young seed.