Nature is gradually starting to turn yellow. Not only birch leaves and harvested grain fields, but a powerful plant with yellow flowers is now in bloom  -  tansy.

You find it just about everywhere: roadsides, seasides, and right now there are masses of it on the idle fields around the Estonian National Museum (Eesti Rahva Muuseum).

Thunder brings a temporary cold spell, nature is “freezing” at 20˚C. But during the day, a smiling sun peeks through an opening in the clouds and spreads tropical heat again, and the dance of butterflies in my flower garden starts anew.

I have a modern butterfly garden, as the fashion in Europe now dictates.

A drinking vessel for white storks under their nest. (Yesterday’s story in LK -  LINK)

The Weather God has been so stingy with rain, that even all the still-water bodies are starting to dry up.

My brother Enn Vilbaste says, that he cannot remember the water level in the Nigula bog lake ever having been so low  -  even stones that were never seen before are now all above the water. The ponds by the bog are totally dry. The beavers will have a critical time in their lives.

Did you notice, how toward the end of last week birches suddenly turned yellow? Normally at this time of the year birches get just yellow streaks in their green dos.

Some birches are already totally autumn-yellow. That, however, does not mean, that somehow the autumn will arrive earlier, it just means that birches are very sensitive to drought and water shortage. Drought is forcing some trees to drop their yellow leaves already.

Also the bird cherry (aka hackberry) is already autumnally red, we can find the first deep-red leaves on the footpaths and the trees themselves look unexpectedly bare. The bird cherry is the first tree to show us the signs of fall.

thistle We keep hearing from Pärnumaa (a county on the west coast of Estonia - M.), that the seaside is thick with ladybirds and the question is: what is causing this unprecedented occurrence?

People, who have frequented seasides know, that ladybirds by the seaside are not really such a rare happening. I remember well, that the year before I started school, I played with ladybirds on the beach at Kabli, and that all the beach dunes, bigger rocks and the tips of the reeds were full of them. When a tall wave happened to roll in, it was coloured red with ladybirds.

Every year in July there are unusual things happening. For example a white-tailed eagle will come to Kütiorg to show off her nestling from this spring, Or I see a black stork flying over my car in the middle of the day.

Past are the months, where big birds were hiding in their nests, away from humans by all means. They were keeping their offspring in secret.

During the summer we were able to see them only with the help of the cameras, that had been placed by their nests by the Looduskalender staff.

Fireweed has stretched open its long cluster of flowers and already its topmost tuft is blooming. But the hairy hill willow-herb is only starting and coltsfoot is still just ripe for picking to relieve men’s health troubles.

Tall yellow pillars  -  mulleins  -  stretch themselves tall in meadows, both the yellow great or common mulleins and also the dark mulleins with their bluish bloom centres. However, their flatter and sparser counterpart, the common agrimony, is at the end of its blooming season.

Our loudest song birds have lost their power. The cuckoo has “caught a barley awn in its throat” (an old Estonian saying - M.)  -  flying over a field it’s no longer chased by an angry flock of birds. Even the nightingale has gone quiet, only the oriole is still whistling.

Right now the bird population presents a totally different sound to the world. The ones singing are mainly hedge sparrows and warblers. In addition, we can often hear some young birds’ cries for help: herons at the lake, owlets in the night or the young ones among a huge flock of starlings. But the oriole keeps whistling away and quite often its shrill sounds predict rain  -  and now the rain showers do keep coming very frequently.

At some point in time, we start looking in the nature for cornflowers.

We probably don’t notice them much before the second week of July, but then all of a sudden every Estonian seems to need them. And there really are certain fields, where dicotyledonous plants are not abolished and where they bloom happily just then.

There are certainly many things to learn about our national flower. For instance, just when do cornflowers start to bloom in our fields. When you ask people, most of them think, that it must happen around the time for the Song Festivals (usually at the beginning of July - translator), because then just about everybody carries cornflowers, either in bouquets or in wreaths on the heads of girls.

You have most likely noticed in the past week, that occasionally on roadways (highways) you can see dead moles. Or maybe you have even happened to see some of these little animals aimlessly plodding along above ground, despite of their fear of light.

Right now is the time, when we are most often able to see them, because the mole families are chasing their offspring out of their underground tunnels. Maybe some eager youngsters are able to build a wall between themselves and their elders, but most of them have to get out into the open and find new soft ground suitable for tunnelling. And doing so, they often get caught in the beaks or teeth of their predatory enemies.