looduskalender.ee

April: Migrant animals arrive

In April quality starts to take over from quantity in the yard. Or, instead of the snow banks, mathematics appears from somewhere. The mathematics of the yard determines the metrics of the yard space, or whether the ordinary Euclidian space reigns, or instead the curved Riemann space, or indeed the hyperbolic Lobachevsky space. Time, that towards the end of winter seemed to have come to a complete standstill, begins moving again and attaches itself to space. The four ancient cosmic elements water, fire, soil and air however are let loose in full force.

 

The normally tiny Treppoja brook has turned into a great river with so much water that it could come flowing up the steps if it just would get the idea of doing so into its head. But it doesn’t come, just goes – ever towards the sea. It would seem that the river has its free will but it doesn’t use it, or if it does, then just in the usual way.

Snow will fall even in April, but it rolls out as a white noise, as a TV screen when the programmes have finished. Against the backdrop of this white buzz migrant animals start to arrive, above all of course birds. They are full of travel memories and know all languages. Calling "horošo, horošo” here and "bonjour, bonjour” there and "well done, well done” , only one poor little guy answers "heaküll, heaküll!”

The first butterfly is yellow of course and the Backyard Potterer can’t catch it with his eyes, to paint it multicoloured with his mental watercolours. So the summer will be monotonously the same – but that is good, a di-tomous or tri-tomous summer might get out of hand altogether. And when summer gets out of hand, you had better get out.

Then the first plants arrive in the yard. Who knows where they were during winter, they don’t shout loud greetings, just creep quietly towards the sky from somewhere behind the water mole’s frightening heaps of soil. Isn’t it curious that in spring the plants that contain the elements that are vital for survival of all grass-eaters are the plants that in summer are not only regarded unkindly but they are also the ones that everybody wants to get rid of in any imaginable way. In spring ground elders, dandelions, nettles are the richest in all kinds of vitamins and minerals. They are pioneer plants and the key to their vitality may well be just this ability to take up into themselves the elements needed for vitality. Did God then plan this - created these plants that keep the herbivores that eat them in spring alive?

 

The Garden Potterer remembers a news item about the best tasting plant in the world. Does your tongue recognise the two most treasured tastes in the world? One of them is vanillin. It is a compound that is extracted from the vanilla orchids fruits, the vanilla pods. It is a tropical vine-like creeper that was at first grown by the Central American cultures such as the Aztecs but now is grown wherever possible. But there is a taste that reigns over vanilla. It is chocolate. Vanillin comes second in another very important list too. After saffron this flavouring is the most expensive.

But for humans no other thing is good enough. The vanilla orchid must be improved too. Traditionally the vanilla plant is propagated by stem cuttings, but this is very laborious and also lessens the yield from the mother plant. The cell culture method would be simpler and so also cheaper. The problem is that sub-clones tend to develop, forming new subtypes less fertile than the mother plant. So the scientists try to create these. Why not attempt to create human tissue cultures that won’t produce lazy, sloppy, silly or crazy types? But no, not allowed, the politicians do not allow manipulation of humans, supposed to be unethical.

But it isn’t unethical to guide reason with light. Never mind that this reason is only that of a tiny worm. So a laser ray has been sent into the cells of the transparent body of the C. Elegans nematode, belonging to the roundworms.

And it has been learnt how, with a ray of light, various neurons can be connected or disconnected without using electrodes. When the little worms swam freely in the little test bowl the start and beginning of their swimming could be directed with laser signals and they could even be encouraged to lay eggs. Well, you don’t need to be a nematode to be affected by light, and that by way of your body cells. In April light is already there and backyard potterers feel how this affects them. Even makes them sigh – spades and rakes, hoes and carts must be found. Time to rake the yard!

If hoodlums rake off honest citizens then backyard potterers rake honest yards. And find unbelievable things there besides cones and bits of branches, needles and leaves. A bit of string, a piece of wire and – oh! look here – the pruning shears that – god knows when – went their own way in autumn. Where have they been in between? But here they are, jaws rattling and demanding: cut branches!

 

But not yet, let it be warmer, let May begin, there is always time to cut branches.

Better see how the freshly arrived birds fly. Yes, we can see that the bird flies and we know that it is a very good navigator. But we don’t necessarily know that the bird has a very good sense of smell. But quite as the bird descends from the dinosaurs, so does its sense of smell. And more: the bird wasn’t satisfied with the dinosaur’s nose and developed its own olfactory sense further.

The oldest known bird Archaeopteryx inherited its olfactory sense from a small meat-eating dinosaur, 150 million years ago. Millions of years passed and 95 million years ago the ancestors of today’s birds already were better at smelling. Maybe the keen sense of smell combined with good sight and coordination helps them navigate better.

From examining the olfactory bulbs in the skulls of fossils the conclusion has been drawn that Archaeopteryx had a sense of smell about the same as present-day pigeons. Vultures and albatrosses are known for their particularly keen sense of smell which they need for finding food as well as for navigation on long flights. About an equal sense of smell had developed in the small Velociraptor–type dinosaurs.