Adult bird and young stork  in evening light

White stork       Valge-toonekurg      Ciconia ciconia

I read in Looduskalender that you are invited to send your stories from nature around your home.

I moved to live in  Kärpla village, in a farmhouse that had been standing empty for more than six years. A couple of weeks later a white stork moved into the farm yard. While the house stood empty the stork nest was also empty for all the years. My question is: why do the white storks need someone to live in the house or near the nest?

Halftail eating grains

 

Bullfinch       Leevike      Pyrrhula pyrrhula

Night guest

Great tit       Rasvatihane     Parus major

Last night there were slight snowdrifts outside and 6 degrees of cold. A couple of days ago I checked  the nestboxes in my garden and  found to my joy that all three seemed to be used by birds in winter too.

I managed to snap a photo of one lodger without disturbing – a quick click with the mobile. A great tit, who else.

The video of the cormorant colony from the Nigula Nature Reserve was recorded by a drone

The video was recorded on five different days in September and October. On some days they were unbelievably many, practically all the branches at the water edge were occupied, and there were as many birds in the water.

Video: LINK

I have observed the doings of roe deer on summer evenings but there is always the knowledge that nature is a harsh place to live in …

On the field of 5 hectares there are up to four roe females and a buck. Each has its own corner but until now the females have not brought along this year’s fawns.

The tit pair nests beside the letterbox this year too (see the image below)

Great tit        Rasvatihane        Parus major

Squirrel in snowfall at the end of January

I live in Tallinn, in a block of flats in Mustamäe. To my great joy squirrels have started to visit us. Sometimes there are even several of them. We have put some nuts or acorns on the windowsill. It is interesting to observe them from the other side of the window.  They don’t notice me and I get the opportunity to photograph them at a very close distance.

Estonia’s wildlife is in trouble but helping hands have become few and each new amendment in legal acts concerning the environment instead weakens the support of humans to nature.
Through ages nature has managed to co-exist with humans – a mutually helpful system has evolved.
We keep the abundance of species in balance, in exchange for enjoying the beauty and gifts of nature. But in the 21st century we have begun to segregate the riches of nature. We need the large wild game in the forest but the small game animals and tiny forest inhabitants, beginning with flying squirrels and ending with rare bird species such as for instance the capercaillie, must cope on their own.

.I was in the country today in the forest near the Koidula (Värska) border post and heard the cuckoo calling. It called in the Kolodovitsa village forest at about two o’clock in the day. The weather was sunny and quite warm. I also found some false morels or turban fungi (Gyromitra esculenta). They however were very small

Turban fungus, Gyromitra esculenta

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It would be very interesting to know what the white storks do whose nests on the power lines have been demolished?

We often go by train in the  Rapla direction and it is always nice to see the stork nests along the railway but last week all nests on top of the electricity poles were gone (destroyed). How will the storks behave now: do they build a new nest in the same place or do they leave for another place altogether?

I think many of us are interested in the fate of the storks