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In Võrumaa willow catkins could be seen everywhere on Monday. Crack willow (Salix fragilis).

 

In Estonia the weather at this year’s summer and winter solstices seem almost comparable. In the last few days all imaginable kinds of warmth records have been set up.

 

The relatively windless autumn at sea finished with a stormy December.

 

New flowering plants can be noted almost every other day – the most remarkable flowerer in the last few days might be the cowslip; there is no point in talking about garden roses. In southern Estonia willow catkins have come out of their catkin scales, surely also elsewhere. Light pollution makes blackbirds and great tits sing in the evening in the suburbs...

 

On December 22nd calendar winter started. The sun is in the southernmost point of its journey, we feel the lack of the snow light. Day length is only a few minutes more than 6 hours. An hour of morning and evening twilight, and the length of night is almost 16 hours. In southern Estonia enough light to see by lasts almost a quarter of an hour longer.  Likewise the day is a little longer in our islands than at the shore of Lake Peipus.