Threatening beauty
Text: Eet and Aarne Tuule, Tallinna Linnuklubi
Photo: Aarne Tuule
Translation: Liis
Blackbird looking for food.
We will all remember this winter for a long time: we can seldom enjoy beauty such as we have already had for a long time, in the cities and in the countryside. Trees, bushes, fences, wires – all groan under loads of snow, or parade in frost jewellery. But real winter brings problems too: heating worries and dangerous icicles for people, but for our birds permanent hunger. Even the industrious great tits, always on the move, can’t manage to get hold of something from snow-buried or ice-covered branches. And that is why they gather in flocks around houses – the woods are almost empty of birds.
Blackbirds seem to be particularly badly off. They gather in much larger groups than usual in areas in the cities where there is even the smallest chance of finding food. The stores of berries and shrivelled apples have been eaten, the snow cover is thick and the winterers are saved only by waste containers and bird feeders. So for instance there was a group of 18 blackbirds around a food waste container in the town of Saue on January 10, and on the same day there were altogether 28 blackbirds in the Lepastiku park in Tallinn-Mustamäe. On January 14 there were 21 blackbirds in the same place, around a container outside a house.
The number of needy is really great, help your winged friends in this severe time!
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