looduskalender.ee

Translation: Liis

The long straight stretch on the Palupõhja road in November (Dead Month) 2014. Photo P. Tammur

 

Turning off the Tallinn - Tartu road and going towards Palupõhja all is ordinary to start with. But somewhere between the Lõhmus bridge and the long straight unexpected things begin to happen: the car radio shuts down, windows open, driving speed drops to almost nil. Suddenly it is so urgent to see and hear what happens around.

 

 ... and in April 2013 (the Sap Month)!

 

In the high water period the freshet water rises above the Palupõhja road. It does so even after the road repairs of 2012 in which too few culverts were planned for the road embankment.

And all that has been seen here over the years!

The lynx kittens that for a while strayed on the road forgetting themselves.

The elk mother and her calf who did not flee from the approaching thundering machine neither to the woods nor to the bog. Now finally I could see how the roadside willows and alder buckthorns disappear into the large mouth of the elk. The calf is sharp. It trusts the car less, preferring to stay in the protective shelter of the mother.

Was it a bear that just now stumped across the road? Large wet footprints prove that at least it was no illusion. Incredibly quick animal …

The capercaillies are on the road again – this time a whole of five cocks

A hawk owl from the north is sitting in a birch top … To start with it seems to be a really rare discovery. Until you talk to bird people and find out that tens of bird enthusiasts have already been to look at the guest from far away! I recall too how, years ago, there was a clear view right from the Palupõhja road to a tree stump with a Ural owl nest...

In the forest clearing wild boar root about. In spring they keep together in groups: a couple of sows and a mischievous pack of striped piglets fooling about around them.

Siskin

If all who have travelled the Palupõhja road would collect their remembered images and real photos the list of such observations would make a quite thick book. And that in spite of the fact that the present road is not particularly old. The road plan was made in 1966 and the road was ready in about 5 years.

What remarkable was then offered to the wayfarers in the end of November, the Dead Month? Whoever knows it all, but surely the twittering siskins in the alder tips and the jangling ice patterns under one’s feet were on the list.

A Dead Month (November) ice pattern on a mud puddle

 

Photos from Palupõhja: LINK
 

Read also Juhani Püttsep’s story in Postimees: LINK

 

Publication of the Alam-Pedja tales in Looduskalender is supported by the Keskkonnainvesteeringute Keskus, Estonian Environmental Investment Centre.