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Second Week of December: Black and White Face of Estonia

15.12.2008 - 02:11 |  Looduskalender
Tekst: Kristel Vilbaste
Fotod: Arne Ader

Father Sky, Taevataat, made an Advent-time snow gift only to half of Estonia last week. The border line was drawn roughly along the riverbed of the Pärnu river. Easterners could go skiing, westerners splashed in water.
 
The four weather signs of the week:
 
nuthatches foraging,
geese,
floods
and thick snow.
 

Of course the deepest snow was here in Vilusi. The weather station of our village Tiirikoja showed 16 centimeters, when as near as in Pärnu and Tallinn there was none at all. We really had so much snow during the week that you had to trudge along already-trodden paths when going out, to keep snow from getting in over your bootleg tops, because in places the drifts were even higher than these twenty centimeters. We shovelled snow from the yard several times and so there was a small snowslide hill where Aotäht even made a cave. Nature at Otepää was even more Christmas-like with large whipped-cream confections on the trees. At Peipsi the stormy weather blew the snow off the trees. 


 

Nuthatch and geese
Like the weather, our present bird population is two-faced. Whereas you still can see geese everywhere in the west, swans float around in the flooded areas and hundred-bird flocks of starlings fly around, then we have as much winter as can be. The tits pick with such speed at the fat balls that we have put out on the balcony that you might believe that colibris have landed in this wintery north – somehow they manage to keep in the air and even quite often to get food from the ball. If, of course, the nuthatch does not arrive – for then the whole of the ball disappears in a moment. When I asked Aotäht to draw a picture for Dad of what is going on at home, he drew a picture of the hanging feeding ball and a bird with a long beak and fluttering wings – there the food goes. But there are many other winter birds in our yard – long-tailed tits, willow tits, and bullfinches. The waxwings have disappeared southwards. But a buzzard is crouching in its last-year wintering place. Yes, bird-watchers write that even the snowy owl has been seen in eastern Estonia.

 


Pig Camera

For those who don’t have the time or health for outdoors walks now in addition to the Eagle Camera the Pig Camera is up http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/node/2141. Even looking at the Internet camera views you see how the eagles find their food on a snow-free table, whereas the boars have to root in the snow for it.  Summing up the first days of Pig Camera: „The wild boars were there – sow as well as youngsters - and raccoon dogs and a slipshod fox. All is carefully noted in the Forum. Good that getting used to the lights took such surprisingly short time for the forest inhabitants.“ This year everybody can share their web experiences with others through the forums. Weatherman Gennadi Skromnov says that this shows clearly how people all over the world are interested in the happenings in our woods: „The forest is packed with web tourists!“ But the actors in those films are often foreigners too – an eagle from Uusimaa in Finland showed off its ring numbers. 


 

Drowning, flooding
The water levels in rivers are slolwy receding, most quickly where they were highest: Soomaa and Kasari. Midweek there was even a risk of deluge from the Emajõgi, some two meters above zero; now the waters have fallen back slightly, but are still high. I cannot even remember a time when stocking up with sandsacks in Tartu has been a subject for discussions in the newspapers. But the banks of the Emajõgi watershed rivers are still snowy, and thaw may bring more water. The shore waters of Peipsi are on the below-zero side and creeks are covered with ice slush; the ice does not go further because the strong winds keep the waters open.
 



 

Go looking for spruce boughs!
The steady flow of timber trucks on the roads tells that plenty of top boughs with beautiful cones on them lie around in the forest lots. In snow-free places you will be sure to find something nice to bring home. And blinking electric lights can surely not compete with the atmosphere that a resin-smelling spruce bough creates at home.
 
FOR CHILDREN
 
Weather game: eight-corners or Viru Gate
The indoors game noughts-and-crosses, trips-traps-trull, is easily learnt. But for today try to make the cross-squares for this out of twigs, or pieces of reed – it makes the ancient ‚well sign’. To start with you can use thread to tie the pieces where they cross. Now if you make another, similar, and turn it a bit, there will be an eight-corner shape. But something to puzzle out in long winter evenings: how to get this shape to hold together without tying. The old people knew how to, and you can get the trick by testing. Mikk Sarv says: „If the well sign is the sign for sleep and cleanliness, then the twofold well sign – the eight-corners or Viru Gate is the symbol of new growth; Christmas-time is the beginning of all renewal.“
 
Quote:
Blinking electric lights is no substitue for the smell of pine resin.
 

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