Winter does not give up
It’s mid- March but the temperatures are still quite wintery. Night temeparatures drop down to -10C, around zero during the daytime and snow is still usual every day. Badgers are up and active, so there is finally something to enjoy from the trail cameras Also some migratory birds have arrived aleady some weeks ago, skylarks first geese, lapwings. The only thing we have to wait is that COVID would ease things and sot of “normal” life would be restored.
Estonia 103
Happy Birthday, Estonia! We shall have an other beautiful year together!
Long silence
Yeah, I know, it has been a while… Well while tourism was declared dead we had to be active in some other areas. Photographing and filming in different projects has taken most of our time. But we are still here and we have tiny hope that maybe 2021 the first signs of recovery will happen and I’m sure that nature tours have many benefits over other types of tourism, more safe , away from masses and fresh air and positive emotions are always good for the health. Its still winter here but I will start preparing for the season, no matter it there will be some amount of tourist or not. I hope to be vaccinated by May so this would make things much earier, at least i would be technically prepared for everything. So I encourage you to take contact and let me know if you are thinking about…
Spring slowed down
It was beautiful start for the April but now the spring has slowed down. It has been raining, snowing and stormy last 8 days. Just few warmer moments. Hectic weather has slowed donw the nature as well. Not much of a good light to take photos, cold and wind is not exactly motivating to go out. Juts for the clearification- we do not have agressiv isolation rules in Estonia and we are allowed to be outdoors as log we keep 2m distance. Ural owl is still sitting quitly on her nest, not much of activity, i keep monitoring her once per day or two days. Elks are much more present, i have been stumbeling upon them every now or then on the same spot. Some bird species have arrived within last 2 weeks, white stork, marsh harrier, first blackcaps. And of course artic waterfowl and cranes are covering the fields…
European elk
I got a nice european elk surprice on my trail camera. I’m usually go to trail cameras once a month for mainteinance. When the camera registers the movement, it send s me 2 low-res images, never the videos. So its always bit of surprize what i get from there. This time i got spontaneos laugh when opening the first 10-sec video when adult elk fills about quater of frame and stares at you. It was probaly 2 m away and the camera is about 2,8 m from the ground. So you can imagine the size of the animal. I also loved that the common cranes are calling same time, I know they are roughly 50 -70 meters away and tenous european aspen forest amplifies this call very nicely. It’s a male, note the antler bases on the forehead.
Ural owl nest
Found a new ural owl nest. Very good location for filming and photography. Well lit and minimal if any disturbance while approaching the area. It’s european aspen forest edge that is surrounded by cleared area with low shrub, some mixture of and beside ural owl there is also balck and white-backed woodpecker habitat, heard pygmy owl far away, common cranes, roe deer and elk trails. This time the nest itself is more challaenging then 2018. Current nest is way deeper. So you can see on the image that owl dives inside the tree about 30-40cm. in the owl nest the owl sit much higher so it was well visible most of the time like you see on the image below. In general I feel very sad that such a nice spring is without birding tours. COVID has done its job and i need to do all birding tours alone. 🙂…
#visitestonialater
Spring is on but the virus has done it’s job, so i think #visitestonialater is proper way to describe the situation. Europe is more or less closed, just last few days some emergency routes are open. It’s huge impact to the toursim sector. It’s clear that for nature toursim the spring season is officially off but i have pretty strong gut feeling that it will have huge impact to autumn season as well. But looking to the future, I think more people start to appriciate closer destinations and more sophisticated way of spending their holidays. So i do see that Estonia has here a nische to fill. I also hope that those guys who just few weeks ago thought that climate change is somewhere other side of the globe, approximately as fas as is the Wuhan province in China, now think a moment before posting a next comment to support…
Coronavirus and travelling to Estonia
The Estonian Government has declared a state of emergency in order to limit the spread of the COVID-19 i.e. coronavirus epidemic. The situation means special measures, some of which also affect tourism in Estonia. MORE INFORMATION HERE! We fully understand if you wish to postpone your March / April trip to May or June, please contact us for more information. We still will bring you fresh new and images from Estonian nature, spring bird migration and life of wildlife. Stay safe!
Estonia, wildlife watching of red squirrels
To see red squrreils in Estonia is easy and they are frequently seen animals at every type of wildlife watching or birding day tour but still they need some patience, good light and luck to get a decent image. During the low season I invest lot of time into environmental and nature education and one output is to teach children photograph nature. So squrrels are first subjects to try out after theoretical lessons and i think it’s lot of fun as they are sort of human friendly, some areas almost semi-tamed. Its fun to have that first connection and interaction with wildlife and kids are more motivated to go further with their wildlife interest. Beside that they get some tips and tricks about wildlife photography, animal behaviour and physiology and concious wildlife watching. If you wish to find your contact with the nature find a suitable daytrip HERE. All trips…
Elk watching
Elk watching is considerably easy in spring and autumn (Sept-October). Some areas of Estonia are probably suffering because of high hunting limits and might be bit difficult to see them. Around Tallinn and west Estonia there are still many high success rate spots left and there is good chance to see them. Of course it’s a nature and nothing is guaranteed! More information of such wildlife watching daytrip you can find HERE.