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.

Near the nest flying exercises go on in daytime too

¨Black stork      Must-toonekurg       Ciconia nigra

Female Kati has not been seen since the beginning of August but so quietly the departure of the black stork females proceeds.

Hunger is what sets the young birds in action because the couple of feedings in a day by male Karl is no longer enough for youths grown big. They have to start acting and occupying themselves as their instincts tell them.