Second week of March: Spring Trickles into Estonia
Text: Kristel Vilbaste
Photos: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis from forum
Among the traditional spring harbingers: field lark.
Just so, trickles. Because all that is joyous and springlike comes by tiny steps from the end of the Sõrve säär peninsula across Pärnumaa and Läänemaa slowly to Tallinn and towards Peipsi ... the feather crest of the lapwing and the flower bud of the snowdrop ...
Snowdrops in flower.
The four weather signs of the week:
fox den,
larks and lapwings,
dripping maple sprig and
sun warmth
As could be guessed Women’s day brought the larks across the sea to Estonia, with the lapwings on their heels. The beaks of larks are not offering us many arias to start with but those starlings and blackbirds who have survived the winter here in Estonia delight us with beautiful singing. The latter – the black thrushes with the golden beaks sing unbelievably beautifully, at least Tallinners should prick their ears towards sunset. But if there really is no spring to be heard or seen outside, then go look for the eagle camera direct stream link on Looduskalender.ee pages in the virtual world and see how two white-tailed eagles diligently carry more and more new sprigs to their nest mound in Läänemaa, and push them down to make a comfortable bed to lie on. The 6-7 years old pair even decorate the nest with green sprigs. The other nest camera, the tawny owl camera, shows that the tawny owl couple already have two eggs.
Crested tit in forest fringe grass. Green already shows among the last-year grass emerging from under the snow!
Capercaillies drawing lines!
Even if bird people only write in their forum of how the owls call to each other in the evening dusk, and even play around making sure of a next generation, then there is excitement to be had in early morning light too – the capercaillies are gathering at their display or lek fields, after strolling around in villages and settled areas. Long lines from their wings on the snow reveal their wakening display urge. Woodpecker drumming has not started yet here in our place at the Peipsi, but the nuthatch rehearses its whistling. The crow crowd are seriously settling down for nesting and a squirrel who strayed too near got a proper thrashing.
Start of sweet maple time
Forest man Vello Keppart sends information that the daytime sunheat has set the maple sap moving. Even if there have been icicles at the tip of some twig earlier it still was not sap flowing – now the sweet maple sap drips in the sun. Notices about flowering snowdrops come from all over Estonia – the discussion of nature people is at the moment mostly about whether the bud opening against the house wall is a true flowerer. But where else then should this early-spring snowdrop open – surely not under the half-metre high snowheap that still spreads on our flower bed. Flower news and other news can be read in the phenology page of the schools http://tere.kevad.edu.ee/. Taali Elementary school managed to record the first snowdrop.
On the snowy mounds of Otepää spring immigrants have little business yet in the immediate future.
Blackbird – songbird with a golden beak.
Horror and bloodshed in the yard!
The pill-fed foxes have now definitely extended their territory to our village shore. The lake shore is densely covered with fox tracks, as if they have had a ball there. They have not even shied off from scratching a den in a steep sandy slope. But the anger of cat owners against the euro-projecters at the Veterinary department is growing – last Wednesday, in broad daylight, a rabies-vaccinated fox grabbed the neighbours’ cat just in our yard, only a few metres from the door, so now the yard is full of tufts of grey hairs and the magpie went gorging itself along the bloodied track. The village hunters cannot help either because according to regulations shooting within the village territory is not permitted. The fox has also invaded the territory of the weasel who lives in our woodshed, but luckily, to judge from the tip-tip-dotted mouse tracks with a tail trace in the snow, there is enough food for both.
Eat food without info labels!
Fasting time is in full swing, in addition to the meat-free period it can be good to have a week only with things that have no papers with tiny print about all the E substances that the product contains.So, eat cabbage, and carrot salad bought from the market, taste Grandmother’s apple sauce from the cellar and make mashed potatoes with the potatoes from your country house ...
FOR CHILDREN:
Chick, chick, don’t show!
When the spring birds arrive it was customary to have a ‘bird lure’ bite in the morning before going out. Mikk Sarv says that the belief was that taking this bread morsel kept away the underworld forces from Toonela, that had come with the birds from their wintering places, from the forces of this world, in this way those hearing the voices of the birds would not lose their strength. The game tied to the bird lure custom is this – the children sit in a ring and put the palms of their hands against each others’, one child in the middle of the ring touches the palms of all but secretly hides a ring, a bread roll or something else nice in the palm of one child, and finally cries: “Chick, chick, jump out!” The one who got the keepsake or bread will be the next hider-sharer. In another variation “Tii, Tii, hold hard!” is called on hiding and at end “Bite rye!” This may hint at the need to take a ‘bird lure’ bite so that the secret forces should not take your strength. But the children also learn to trust and keep secrets.
Quotation:
The first snowdrop was recorded by Taali elementary school!
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