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In December weather forecasters overbid each other with prognoses: a white christmas or not. Optimists and pessimists may both be right this year. Because it would need a weather miracle to take away the crisp, gingerbread-icing-like ten centimeters of snow cover on eastern Estonia. At the same time there seems to be no hope for western folks of anything coming down from heaven to stay on the ground as a white Christmas miracle. But ... miracles do happen – last Tuesday the ground in Sweden pounded, as Aotäht commented that 4,7-magnitude earthshake. It is fascinating to see how such manifestations of Nature’s powers bring people back to Nature-based beliefs. Last week the masters of this State implemented new environmental protection laws that will allow businessmen to stuff their moneybags even fuller from protected areas and leave treestumps – we will see what Old Man Weather, Ilmataat, has to say about that?

Waters get ice covers, but swans do not yet need to migrate to warmer countries.

Even if the larger part of Estonia still shows a watery and runny nose, here in the east – on Lake Peipus – the icecover is quite firm as far as you can see. The icing brought hungry days for the wing-bearers whose biological clock has gone awry. At our place in Vilusi a mute swan in the middle of ice slurry tried to snap some roots from the lake bottom. We even made a call to the Nigula wild animal shelter. From there we were told that we were not alone to worry. ”But never go out yourselves on weak ice to help these birds”, shelter hostess Kaja Kübar said, ”mostly they get away by themselves”. The delayed migration may also come from overfeeding of the swans. ”With the first cold wave we got calls about swans from all over Estonia. They will get away in due time!” And quite right, this white bird is gone from the white icy space. The only ones still swishing around here are crows and hop-and-skip-flying woodpeckers. The tits keep watch near the feeding station. But in snow-free parts of Estonia – Hiiumaa –a 500-bird flock of starlings is said to be flying around.

Country roads are adventure grounds, covered by ice smooth as glass, with each little stone clearly visible through it. But streaming waters here have not frozen yet, except some slight ice on the flood overflows in the forests. The life of fish in the rivers has calmed down too. Weatherman Gennadi Skromnov says that salmons and their kins coming from the sea up the rivers have nearly all finished their spawning. ”It has been a good year for the salmonides, the floods washed away much mud from the rivers. Some very big fish went up the rivers this year.“ Despite the firm-looking ice on Peipsi, fishing on the lake is still strictly forbidden.

Herd of roe deer at food manger.

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