Прыгоды з жыцця прыроды
Adventures from the life of nature
Вячаслаў Грамыка
Для сярэдняга школьнага ўзросту
Выдавец: Беларусь
Памер: 263с.
Мінск 2003
When evening came, the hare cautiously crawled out of the fir grove and started jumping towards the field. Light frost weakened a bit and fresh softened winter crop turned more tender and was easy to nibble, satisfying the day's hunger. At that time the hare decided not to stroll across the field as it used to and made for the thicket. It was exhausted with weariness and it lay in the familiar place with pleasure. It was already the middle of the night. The wind gradually stopped. The frost was becoming stronger. The hare rolled up its small paws, hid its wet small nose into his hair and dozed.
It woke up and did not recognize the environs. Everything was surprisingly white, as if poured over with thick milk. Whiteness covered the ground, tree branches, even the hare itself was covered with that continuous whiteness.
The Torn Ear was surprised and afraid to move from its place. Only its eyes blinked interestedly and watchfully, looking round suspiciously and timidly. So far it did not understand that it was simply the fall of snow and there was no wonder in that.
At first, The Torn Ear suspiciously smelled in front of it with its sensitive small nose. Then it indecisively tried to touch snow with its small paw. There was nothing frightful at all. It was soft and rather cold. The hare grew bolder. It rose and cheered up. Fresh loose snow hang in the air like a small cloud, sparkling under the stingy rays of the cold winter sun by multitude of sparks, small lights, stars. How not to get merry amidst such beauty! The hare jumped joyfully along the white blanket.
Since that morning The Torn Ear felt much more confident. No longer did it hide in the thicket, sometimes undertook long marches to distant fields with sloping hillocks, from which the snow was blown off by the wind. There was no need to rake out winter crops from under the snow thick.
Occasionally, the hare would come across the tracks of a wolf and a fox. Naturally, that put the hare on its guard and the white hare changed its route immediately. Simultaneously, it grasped a new science — it learnt how to entangle the tracks on the snow and to hide from the enemies.
With every day winter declared of itself with greater confidence. Frosts were getting stronger. Blizzards were strolling about the empty fields. Snow has fallen in addition. Hares had to undertake rather long marches to the most distant fields, stayed there and if snowfall would not stop, they did not torture themselves by trace entangling, but came back straight — everyone into its own shelter — and lay there until the next night. During the night snow covered their tracks and it was impossible to find a hare, if only, by chance, one could stumble across its bed.
Usually animals kept to their paths. Though the latter often were covered with snow, hares found them without difficulty. Such troubles did not bother The Torn Ear. A white hare, unlike
many other wild animals, is well adapted to life in a winter forest. It is not afraid of snow. Its rear paws are broad enough and by winter they are covered densely with hair. Fluffy round paws, as if broad plates, reliably held it even on completely friable snow drifts.
As before, it kept close to the thicket, concealing itself somewhere under a low bush, small fir tree or behind a broad stump. When dusk fell it left the places of its day's rest. Habitually, it fed in the areas of winter crops, often calling on those parts together with other white hares. It traveled to the nearest meadows and mowed clearings where snow was blown off from open sectors.
During long snowfalls The Torn Ear was satisfied with branches of aspen, with rind of young trees. Occasionally, it called on farmsteads and nibbled the rind of young apple trees.
Everything would be fine, but for hunters, who began to appear in the forest with their dogs.
Everything was okay for some time. The Torn Ear spent the first half of the winter rather easily, without special adventures. But one day...
Hunters have a special method of hunting, which they call a battue or a pocket: in the forests, rich with wild animals, they arrange ambushes and beaters are combing a forest in chains, driving the animals out onto another strip — the shooting line.
Usually, during such battue, fox, black grouse, white hare, marten get shot and not only they.
A group of beaters has scattered in chain around the forest and with loud shouts they moved like an avalanche.
All the living creatures became anxious, talkative magpies started chattering. They heralded danger: run for your life!
After the night visit to a rye field The Torn Ear as usually carelessly lay under an overthrown fir tree covered with snow. Naturally, on hearing the shouts, it pricked up its ears, lent an attentive ear to the sounds. All of a sudden, it saw a fox, running as fast as it could. It also discovered the hare but would not stop — it had no time for that. Not far from it, with big leaps, stopping from time to time, an excited grey hare was making its
way in the same direction. Having felt the danger, The Tom Ear rushed after those running away.
The thicket ended soon. Low forest and brushwood began. Where to make the way? The hare squatted, looked around and decided to make for the swamp with tussocks.
At that moment a shot was heard from one side, though not very close. The Tom Ear started making fuss, made a couple of jumps and stopped to look around. Suddenly it saw a hunter dressed in all white. The hare realized that the hunter was even taken aback by such an unexpected encounter, but the man's indecisiveness was gone in a moment and he shouldered his gun hastily.
The hare jumped up, rushed, but not back or aside — straight into the hunter. It scudded into the hunter and slipped between his legs. And while he was turning around and reloading his single-barreled gun, The Torn Ear was already far away.
It lay among the hummocks of the upper swamp and cocked an ear: was there a pursuit behind? It seemed there wasn't. It made a move and then noticed drops of blood on the snow. The hunter must have failed to take good aim, moreover, the white hare quite unexpectedly started with a jerk not somewhere, but straight into him and the tardy shot only wounded the white hare with one small pellet.
...The winter was nearing the end. The sun became warmer. Days were much longer. Near the trees and on the hillocks the snow began to melt, merry rivulets started fighting their way through under its still hard and compressed rust, heralding the coming of spring. Compressed snow was slipping and came down in some places, it became more difficult to run on it and it meant that soon hunters and dogs would cease bothering wild animals.
Nevertheless, the white hare happened to meet them once again. And it was let down by its excessive greed to delicacies. The hare was bored with bitter aspen rind and it could hardly count upon winter crops any longer. During the night moisture fused into a frozen mass with sprouts of rye and it became simply impossible to nibble them. Somewhere behind the field village huts huddled together and near them there were young apple
trees. And their rind was so tasty! How could it resist the temptation?
When dusk fell, The Torn Ear made for the village. It ran out of the forest calmly. It was quiet. Th4’ village was asleep shrouded in dismal darkness, but tense silence was always deceitful. Cautiously, so as dogs would not hear, The Torn Ear slipped into the orchard. It was greedily nibbling the young sweet rind. Having been carried away by the late supper, it forgot about prudence.
Suddenly the farm night watchman with a dog appeared nearby. The mongrel detected the hare. At once The Torn Ear dashed like lightning. Other dogs started barking from the village side. It was dangerous to come back by the former road.
The Torn Ear rushed in the other direction, along the river. Very soon the river made a sharp bend and when the white hare tried to make an arch at high speed, the dog cut off its way. The Torn ear found itself in a trap. The river with such a thin spring ice was from one side and the dog — from the other. Where should it rush? And in desperation the white hare got off with a jerk onto the ice powdered with the last snow. It didn't have any other way out.
The dog took after it, but when The Torn Ear, in a soft leap, crossed the most dangerous middle of the river, which had already broken up and was gurgling with water, the ice gave way and the dog found itself in the water... That was salvation for the white hare.
...Such was the end of winter adventures. Spring was coming. The snow in the forest began to melt, settled down and in places where it remained, it was dangerous to march on since one could easily sink with it to the very surface of sticky, limp soil. Hunting season was over.
With every day the sun was becoming warmer. Here and there, on the forest thawed patches, in the calm, where the soil was free from snow and warmed stronger, the grass turned green on small flower beds, shrubs revived.
Everything around changed. It was clear that hard winter days had passed, soon the whole nature would bloom, fresh nutritious forage would appear. New times came for The Torn Ear, life went on, not an easy one, but full of troubles and danger.
THE MUSHROOM SEASON
In nature it happens so that August meets with autumn. Days become shorter and nights longer. The warm sunny weather has gone. At dawn, low places and water bodies are covered with fog. But August is rich in its own way. Corn from the fields is delivered to the granaries in a flow. Apples and pears ripen in orchards. In the vegetable garden there is a bumper harvest as well. Warm short-term rains favor the growth of mushrooms that is why these rains have acquired their poetic name — “mushroom rains”.
There is no other month in the year, which is as rich in mushrooms as August. Yellow chanterelles “scattered” in a friendly round dance in the green or gray moss, and on the edge of the forest a line of little new bright oily headed mushrooms — “maslyata” — is waiting for a mushroomer to put them into his basket. When you walk into a mixed wood you will come across russules. Some russules have already shaped into small plates, others have just sprung up and are turning towards the sun with their blue caps.
КНІГІ ОНЛАЙН
