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…
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. 🙂…
Mornings..
Some mornings are prettier than others. I woke up 5 am. The sky was clear, blackbird was singing and I decided to take a short bird watching trip (it’s a little part of our West Estonia birdwatching tour). The weather was very-very windy near the coast, but we still saw more than 35 species. Cranes, swans, lapwings, geese, cormorants were the most popular. #springmigration Be careful, enjoy the nature! Have a great day 🙂
#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…
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…
Spring bird migration in Estonia
Spring bird migration in Estonia is about to start. I went for a short tour this Sunday to find some skylarks lapwings or cranes but it was raining and snowing heavily most of the day and had no luck to see any of them. Still i got decent 34 species within some hours including snow bunting, huge flocks of redpolls, bullfinches, very nice observation of sparrow hawk, white-tailed eagle, dipper and after sunset got one balck woodpecker as well. Got a reply from pygmy-owl from 2 spots but did not saw them. In central Estonia, Tartu, Pärnu area and west Estonia larks, lapswings and cranes are present, first small flocks of geese are flying over as well. Last week we had also rare natural phemomena called snow 🙂 here. Of course I was travelling and almost missed it but at least had few hours of snowy landscape Today the snow…
Who is a gamekeeper?
Well, still no snow.. Atleast we have some sunny days! Some days ago I went for a little hike.. and I found something.. Here is an old gamekeeper’s log house. It’s 6km from small borough and not everyone knows where it actually is. Gamekeeper is like a main forester in certain area. Have you heard that in the last century we had gamekeepers all over Estonia? Actually, the first signs of gamekeepers are from 13th century, when landlords had their own forests. In the 19th century the forest management was more popular than before, so the gamekeepers became more important. They had their own log houses in the forests and they knew exactly, what was going on, how many different animals are there or who’s walking there. Estonian history is various and interesting. Would you like to know more? Our Lahemaa National Park tour is for people, who wish to…
Estonian smallest predator – least weasel
Have you heard about least weasel (ld. Mustela nivalis)? Least weasel is the smallest predator in Estonia and also in the world. Average body length in males is 130 to 260 mm (just to make you a little comparison – brown bear footprint is 130-250+mm). I have seen weasels only 2 times. These photos are made some years ago, it was a total surprise to see weasel running in the gravel road. I jumped out from my car and the weasel disappeared. About thirty seconds later the weasel came back with lunch in the mouth. Least weasel has brown back, tail and limbs; their chest is white. But in the winter they are all covered with white fur to hide from predators, so it’s not easy to notice them. Usually they eat different rodents, but they are also able to catch frogs, fish and small birds and it’s not a…