Прыгоды з жыцця прыроды
Adventures from the life of nature
Вячаслаў Грамыка
Для сярэдняга школьнага ўзросту
Выдавец: Беларусь
Памер: 263с.
Мінск 2003
It is a pity but weather gods — meteorologists — can't always be accurate, sometimes curious things may happen.
At the same time, various animals, which are well known to us, can render on invaluable service in this respect, but we sometimes don't guess about their wonderful ability. Animals
can have a keen feeling of the approaching weather change and react to it by their behavior.
Let's take, for example, an ordinary small fish living in our water bodies, which is called the “viewn” (loach). Place it into your aquarium and you will get the best “barometer”. Before the approaching thunderstorm the fish will be rushing about and coming to the surface 10 — 15 times per minute, whereas before clear weather it will lie still at the bottom.
A toad can compete with this small fish. A loud croaking in the middle of the day is a reliable sign of the oncoming bad weather. On the contrary, a continuous evening croaking promises fine weather. When toads are silent you can expect a fall of temperature. Then try to make a little wooden staircase, put it into a glass jar and place a lake toad there, too. Such “live barometer” had been widely used in old Russia. On the eve of changeable weather the toad will sit at the bottom, if it goes up the little stairs you should expect bad weather and if it constantly keeps to the surface, the weather will be warm, sunny and dry. Guaranteed accuracy in such cases is rather high — 90 to 95 %.
Marsh leeches don't yield to “viewns” and toads in this respect. In fine weather, when no sharp changes are expected, leeches crawl quietly at the bottom, on stones and near-bottom parts of water plants. But when they begin to crawl out along the stems and bushes, up to the water surface — a thunderstorm should be expected soon. The leech can be an indicator of the coming temperature change: if a leech is stretched when it moves or is still, then there will be no fall of temperature, but when it rolls up the temperature will soon fall.
A little bird of our woods called “berestyanka”, feels the approaching rain some twelve or even twenty four hours beforehand and unceasingly informs the surroundings about it with its ringing song “Fit!., few-few-few! Fit!., few-few-few!”
By its frequent and prolonged cuckooing the cuckoo informs us about the setting in of warm days and cessation of light dawn frost.
Swifts never let you down in their forecasts. You can often see how the birds, which have just been enjoying themselves in the sky, suddenly disappear from it. It means that foul weather is expected to set in here. Swifts, being excellent fliers, manage
to cover by that time hundreds of kilometers and can wait in a safe place till the bad weather is over.
At home an ordinary cat can help in weather forecasting. When it lies having rolled itself up into a ball then ўой may expect severe frosts; when it walks stretching and arching its body — a warm spell will set in, if it is licking its belly it promises bad weather and if it is scratching with its claws — there will be a strong wind.
Crow The Sower
A crow has alighted upon a maple tree. It is running its clutches along the branch. Under the crow's weight the branch shakes and it helps the seeds to fall down.
Maple seeds are unusual. They look like small bulges with long wings. Two portions of seeds are hidden in each bulge.
It falls into two parts and each of them remains with one little wing. When one part comes off and falls down, its wing begins to spin about it very quickly as if it were a little “helicopter.” The wind will carry this “helicopter” to some other place and it will give rise to a new maple next year.
It never occurs to the crow that it is she who seeds little maples.
Amazing Little Animal
Winter is a very tough period in the life of the majority of forest inhabitants. And cold is not the main reason for this. For the majority of small animals snow is the roof, protection from severe colds and sharp frosts. The main thing is to find food. Shrews, mice and rats hide during wintertime in deep holes under a warm snowy cover. During their hibernation both bears and badgers doze in their dwellings. Squirrels economically spend reserves of their larders. And this time is the most difficult for beasts of prey, which do not practice winter hibernation and had failed to fill their larders.
But a weasel always feels good. Its agile, thin and elastic body can get into any hole under the snow cover. I happened to see one day how a brood of hazel-grouses fell down from a tree into deep snow, but at that very moment alarmed birds flew up again and
only one, convulsively waving its wings, sprawled on the snow. A weasel strongly seized on its breastbone with its harp teeth and is already tearing apart the fall of prey, which seemed rather big for it.
If I did not see it with my own eyes, 1 would have never believed that this could have happened. Unintentionally the cases described before by other naturalists, come to my memory. For example, there may be cases when a weasel hunts for even bigger wild animals — black grouses and even wood grouses. It holds a bird's throat with a death grip and flies together with its victim high into the sky until the latter, in the long run, would fall down, bleeding to death. Imagine that weasel's weight is not more than 100 grams, its length is only 20 centimeters. Now you see how weird it can be in nature.
By my experience I know that, despite of the fact that weasels are spread everywhere in our country, they are not numerous in all districts. But that animal has some favorite places. They are riverside spots, coppices, clearings, former sites of fire; it can often be met in settlements where there are many old abandoned buildings.
With pleasure I ski over the soft, not crusty snow and all of a sudden something almost unnoticeable slides close ahead of me and vanishes. Something as white as snow. Perhaps, it was a small piece of snow, which rolled down?
No! Here's a short chain of traces going away from me, as if somebody drew a lace over the snow. It was stretching, stretching and disappeared — the animal darted right into the snow thickness. And some meters further the lace resumes — the weasel appeared on the surface again. It would have been easier to detect it in summertime: the coloring of its fur is dark brown, sometimes with pale yellow tinge, a long white strip goes along the lower part of the neck and along the belly. In winter dress, the weasel is all white. So you have to “read” the tracks...
What was the animal doing here? Seeking for food or something else? For God's sake, don't think that the only weasel's occupation is to strangle hazel grouses and black cocks. Not at all, usually it is satisfied with a smaller fall of prey. It feeds on rodents, mice and field-voles.
Besides, despite its excellent hunting capabilities, a weasel often stores in holes a very special reserve, as they say “for the
black day”. It takes there dozens of field-voles and other small rodents and lives on them without much trouble. But mice should beware when such “storer” takes the hunting path.
You can trace much amazing and mysterious in the life of a weasel. For example, it scares cows and horses during the night. It may run into a cattle shed at night and crawl onto an animal's back. The latter is all in a soap sweat by the morning... What for is it doing that? Some people believe that the animal takes vengeance on the owner for something. Others say that it likes animal's salty sweat, which it licks out from the hair of cows and horses...
...My ski track goes further. Here the chain of traces started making loops, spinning round in one place and I see several dents on the snow and pieces of greyish skin — the weasel has dealt with a grey baby vole and then it dashed into a hole, evidently, for rest. A straight short track tells about that. Interesting is the “white winter book.” And .today I turned over its next page...
ЗМЕСТ
Слядамі шэрых разбойнікаў 3
Ваяр патаемных віроў 79
У кіпцюрах драпежніка 104
Грыбнаяпара 120
Мініяцюры з натуры 128
CONTENTS
On the Wolf Paths 135
The Master of the Deep Pools 210
In the Predator’s Claws 234
The Mushroom Season 249
Short Sketches 257
Літаратурна-мастацкае выданне
Грамыка (Стома) Вячаслаў Іосіфавіч
ПРЫГОДЫ 3 ЖЫЦЦЯ ПРЫРОДЫ
На беларускай / англійскай мовах
Рэдактар /./. Белавус
Рэдактар англійскага тэксту У.В. Гурыновіч Мастапкае афармленне А.П. Блінцова Мастацкі рэдактар Л. I. Мялоў Камп’ютэрная вёрстка AC. Скроцкага Карэктары Л.Р. Кузьміна, Г.К. Піскунова
Падпісана да друку з гатовых дыяпазітываў 03.09.2003. Фармат 60x90 '/ Папера газетная. Гарнітура «Ньютан». Афсстны друк. Ум. друк. арк. 16,5+2,0 укл. Ул.-выд. арк. 14,59+1,39 укл. Тыраж 3000 экз. Зак. 1784.
Рэспубліканскае унітарнае пралпрыемства «Выдавецтва «Беларусь» Міністэрства інфармацыі Рэспублікі Беларусь. Ліцэнзія Л В № 2 ад 31.12.2002. 220004, Мінск, праспект Маійэрава, 11.
Рэспубліканскае унітарнае прадпрыемства «Выдавецтва «Беларускі Дом друку». 220013, Мінск, праспект Ф. Скарыны, 79.
ВЫДАВЕЦТВА
« БЕЛАРУСЬ»
Грамыка (Стома) Вячаслаў Іосіфавіч — празаік, паэт, пубяіцыст.
Дыпламант Усесаюзнага конкурсу на лепшы теор навукова-папулярнай літаратуры, лаўрэат Першай спецыячьнаіі прэміі і ўладальнік Гран-пры "Экалогія і літаратура". лаўрэат журналісцкай прэміі "Залатое пяро", літаратурных прэмій імя Міхаіла Святлова і імя "Маладой гвардыі", уладальнік ганаровага зеання "Заслужаны журналіст" Беларускага саюза журналістаў, лаўрэат Міжнароднай
Ганаровай прэміі імя Ул. Даля.
Аўтар тузіны кніг, тысяч публікацыйу газетах і часопісах мноства краін: ад берагоў "туманнага Альбіёна" — Англіі да “самай далёкай гавані"— Камчаткі
Vyacheslav losiphovich Gromyko (Stoma) is a Belarusian prose writer, poet and publicist.
He is an award-winner of the All-Union contest for the best work in popular scientific literature, laureate of the First special prize and holder of the Grand Prix "Ecology and Literature", laureate of the journalistic prize "The Golden
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