Which bird breeds chicks in winter? Which birds in nature breed chicks in winter and why Which birds breed chicks.

FOREST NEWSPAPER №5

MONTH OF CHICKS (SECOND MONTH OF SUMMER)

THE SUN ENTERS THE SIGN OF LION

YEAR - SOLAR POEM: JULY

FOREST KIDS

How many children does anyone have? - Homeless. - Caring parents. - What kind of chicks did the snipe and buzzard hatch? - A colony on the island of Kotlin. - Inside out.

FOREST INCIDENTS

Scary chick. - Bathing the cubs. - Berries. - Cat fosterling. — Focus of small krutigolovok. - Left with a nose. - Predatory flower. - Underwater fight. — Not wind, not birds, but water. —Google. - Wonderful fruit. -Toadstools. - From the diary of a young naturalist: Lilies of the valley at the end of summer. - Blue and green.

WAR IN THE FOREST

COLLECTIVE CALENDAR

STORIES BY KIT VELIKANOVA. ANGLER'S STORY

Night fears. - Robbery in broad daylight. Who is the enemy, who is the friend. — Hunting for birds of prey. - At the nests. — Hunt stealth. — With an owl. — Dark night. — Opening of summer hunting.

TIR. Competition fifth.

ADS. Sharp-eyed, the fourth test.

COLUMBA CLUB: fifth month.

Year - solar poem in 12 months

JULY - the crown of summer - does not know tired, cleans everything. Rzhitsa-mother orders to bow to the ground. The oats are already in a caftan, but there is no shirt on the buckwheat.

Green plants have made their body out of sunlight. We store the golden ocean of ripe rye and wheat for ourselves for the whole year. We store hay for the cattle: the forests of grasses have already fallen, mountains of haystacks have risen.

Birdies begin to fall silent: they are no longer up to songs. All nests have chicks. They are born naked mole rats and need the care of their parents for a long time. But the earth, water, forest, even the air - everything is now full of food for the little ones - will get it for everyone!

The forests are full of small juicy fruits everywhere: strawberries, blueberries, blueberries, currants; in the north - golden cloudberries, in the south in the gardens - cherries, strawberries, cherries. The meadows changed their golden dress to chamomile: the white color of the petals reflects the hot rays of the sun. The creator of life - Yarilo-sun does not joke at this time: his caresses can burn.

HOW MANY KIDS DO YOU HAVE?

A young moose cow lives in a large forest outside the city of Lomonosov. She had one calf born this year.

The white-tailed eagle has a nest in the same forest. There are two eaglets in the nest.

Sneeze, chaffinch, oatmeal have up to five chicks.

The vertigo has eight.

The polovnichka (long-tailed tit) has twelve.

The gray partridge has twenty.

In the nest of a stickleback, each egg hatched a fry, a total of a hundred sticklebacks.

The bream has hundreds of thousands.

There are countless codfish: probably a million fry.

HOME

Bream and cod do not care about their children at all. They spawned and left. And let the kids themselves, as they know, hatch, live and feed.

But what about if you have hundreds of thousands of children. You can't look after everyone.

The frog has only one thousand children, and even then it does not think about them.

Of course, homeless people do not have an easy life. There are many voracious monsters under water, and all of them are greedy for tasty fish and frog caviar, for fish and frogs.

How many fish fry and tadpoles perish, how many dangers threaten them until they grow into big fish and frogs - it's scary to think straight.

CARING PARENTS

But the moose cow and all mother birds are caring parents.

Elk is ready to give her life for her only cub. Try to attack her even if the bear itself: she will start kicking with both front and hind legs, so finish him with her hooves that another time the bear will not stick close to the calf.

Our correspondents were caught in the field by a partridge's son: from under their very feet he jumped out and rushed to hide in the grass. They caught him, and he - how he squeaks! Out of nowhere - mother partridge. She sat her son in the hands of people, tossed about, clucked, crouched on the ground, dragging her wing.

Correspondents thought she was wounded. The partridge was abandoned, they chased after her.

Partridge hobbles along the ground - you are about to grab it with your hand; but just stretch out your hand - it is to the side. They chased and chased the partridge like that, - suddenly she flapped her wings, rose above the ground - and flew away as if nothing had happened.

Our guys returned back - for the partridge - and he caught a trace. It was on purpose that the mother pretended to be wounded, took her away from her son in order to save him.

She stands up for each of her cubs so much: after all, she has only twenty of them.

BIRD WORKDAYS

A little light - birds on the wing.

The starling works 17 hours a day, the city swallow - 18, the swifts - 19, and the redstart - more than 20.

I checked.

Yes, they can not work less.

After all, in order to feed their chicks, the swift must bring food at least thirty to thirty-five times a day, the starling - about two hundred, the city swallow - three hundred, and the redstart - over four hundred and fifty!

How many insects harmful to the forest, their larvae, they destroy during the summer - and do not count!

They work tirelessly!

Leskor N. Sladkov

WHAT CHICKS HAVE HARVESTED AT SNIPE AND SARYCH?

A little buzzard, just hatched from an egg, has a white bump on its nose. This is the egg tooth. It is for them that the chick breaks the shell when it is time for him to come out of the egg.

The Little Little Sarychonok will grow up and become a bloodthirsty predator - a thunderstorm of rodents. And now he is a funny kid, all in fluff, half-blind.

He is so helpless, such a sissy: he cannot take a step without mom and dad. He would have starved to death if they had not fed him.

And among the chicks of other birds there are fighting guys: as soon as they hatch out of the egg, they will jump on their legs - and please: they get food for themselves, and they are not afraid of water, and they themselves hide from enemies.

And here sit two snipes. They are only a day like from an egg, but they have left their nest and are looking for worms for themselves. That is why the snipe had such large eggs so that the snipe could grow up in them (See "Forest Newspaper" No. 4).

Kuropatkin's son, whom we just talked about, is also a fighting one. Just born, and already running like hell.

Here is another wild duck - merganser. As soon as he was born, he immediately hobbled to the river, flopping into the water! - and began to swim.

He already knows how to dive and stretch, rising on the water - just like a big one.

And the pika's daughter is a terrible sissy. She sat in the nest for two whole weeks, now she flew out and sits on a stump.

That's how she pouted: she was unhappy that her mother did not fly with food for a long time.

She is almost three weeks old and still squeaks and demands that her mother stuff caterpillars and other treats into her mouth.

COLONY ON THE ISLAND

On the sandbar of one island, small gulls live in the country.

At night they sleep in sandy holes (holes) - three in a hole. The whole shallow in the holes: such a large colony of gulls.

During the day they learn to fly, swim and catch small fish under the guidance of their elders.

Old seagulls teach and vigilantly guard their children.

When the enemy approaches, they fly in a flock and rush at him with such a cry and uproar that everyone will be afraid.

Even the huge white-tailed sea eagle is in a hurry to get away from them.

SCREW-REVERSE

From different places in our vast country, we are written about meetings with an amazing bird. We saw her this month near Moscow and in Altai, on the Kama and on the Baltic Sea, in Yakutia and in Kazakhstan. A very cute and elegant bird, similar to those bright floats that are sold in the cities to young anglers. And so trusting that - come at least five steps - it will swim in front of you near the shore, not at all afraid.

All other birds now sit on nests or lead chicks, and these will gather in flocks and travel all over the country.

It is surprising that these bright beautiful birds are females. In all other birds, the males are brighter, more beautiful than the females, while these have the opposite: the males are gray, and the females are mottled.

It is even more surprising that these females do not care about their children at all. Far to the north, in the tundra, they laid their testicles in a hole - and goodbye! And the males stayed there to incubate eggs, feed and protect the chicks.

Everything topsy-turvy!

This bird is called a round-nosed phalarope.

You can meet her everywhere: today here, tomorrow there.

FOREST INCIDENTS

SCARY CHICKEN

Thin, tender wagtails in the nest hatched six tiny naked chicks. Five are chicks like chicks, and the sixth is a freak: all kind of rough, wiry, big-headed, bulging eyes closed with a film, and the beak will open - you will recoil: there the whole mouth will open - a breakthrough.

The first day he lay quietly in the nest. Only when the wagtails flew up with food did he raise his heavy, fat head with difficulty, squeak weakly and open his mouth - feed!

The next day, in the chill of the morning, when the parents flew off to get food, he stirred. He lowered his head, rested it on the floor of the nest, spread his legs wide and began to back away.

He ran backwards on his little brother-chick and began to dig under him. He threw back his bare crooked stumps-wings, wrapped them around his little brother, squeezed them like claws, and with the chick on the backs, everything backwards, backwards began to move towards the wall.

In the hole at the end of his back, his little brother-chick — small, weak, blind — floundered as if in a spoon. And the freak, resting his head and legs, raised him higher and higher - until the chick was at the very edge.

Then, all tensed, the freak suddenly threw up his back, and the chick flew out of the nest.

The nest of wagtails was in a cliff above the bank of the river.

A tiny naked waggoose flopped down on the pebbles - and crashed to death.

And the evil freak, almost falling out of the nest himself, swayed, swayed on its edge, but his thick head outweighed it, and he fell back into the nest.

The whole terrible affair lasted two or three minutes.

Then the freak, exhausted, lay motionless in the nest for a quarter of an hour.

Parents arrived. He raised his heavy blind head on his sinewy neck and, as if nothing had happened, opened his mouth, squeaked, “Feed!”

I ate, rested - and began to drive up under another brother.

He could not cope with this so easily: the chick floundered violently and rolled off his back. But the freak did not let up.

And five days later, when his eyes were cut through, he saw that he was lying alone in the nest: he threw all five chicks-brothers away and killed them.

Only on the twelfth day of his birth did he finally become covered with feathers - and then it became clear that the wagtails on the mountain had fed themselves a foundling - a cuckoo.

But he squeaked so pitifully, so like their own dead children, so touchingly, trembling with his wings, asked for food, that thin, tender birds could not refuse him, could not leave him to die of hunger.

Living from hand to mouth, in the hassle of not having time to eat their fill, from sunrise to sunset they dragged him fat caterpillars and, diving headlong into his wide mouth, thrust food into his gluttonous abyssal throat.

By autumn they had fed him. He flew away from them and never met them again in his life.

BATHING THE CUBS

Our familiar hunter was walking along the bank of a forest river and suddenly heard a loud crackling of branches. He got scared and climbed a tree.

A large brown bear came ashore from the thicket, with her two cheerful bear cubs and a pestun - her one-year-old son, a bear nurse.

The bear sat down. Pestun grabbed one bear cub with his teeth by the scruff of the neck and let's dip him into the river.

The little bear squealed and floundered, but the pestun did not let him out until he rinsed him well in the water.

Another cub was frightened of a cold bath and started to run away into the forest.

The pestun caught up with him, slapped him, and then - into the water, like the first.

He rinsed, rinsed it - and accidentally dropped it into the water. The teddy bear is screaming! Then, in an instant, a bear jumped up, dragged her little son ashore, and gave the pestun such a splash that he, poor, howled.

Once again on the ground, both cubs were very pleased with the bath: the day was hot and they were very hot in thick, shaggy coats. The water refreshed them well.

After bathing, the bears again hid in the forest, and the hunter got down from the tree and went home.

BERRIES

Many different berries ripened. Raspberries, red and black currants and gooseberries are harvested in the gardens.

Raspberries are also found in the forest. It grows in a bush. You will not make your way without breaking its fragile stems. Everything crackles underfoot. But for raspberries, this is not a loss. These stalks, on which the berries now hang, will live only until winter. And here is their change. That's how much came out of the ground from the rhizomes of young stems. Furry, all dotted with thorns. Next summer it will be their turn to bloom and grow berries.

In bushes and hummocks, on clearings near stumps, lingonberries ripen, berries already with a red barrel.

They are in lingonberries in bunches on the tops of the stems. On some bushes, these heaps are so large, dense, heavy, bent down and lie on the moss.

I would like to dig up such a bush, transplant it to myself and take care of it - will the berries become even larger? But, for the time being, lingonberries "in captivity" are not successful. And it is an interesting berry. Its berries can be stored for food all winter, just pour boiled water or ceiling to make the juice come out.

Why doesn't she rot? She preserved herself. It contains benzoic acid. And benzoic acid prevents the berries from rotting.

N. Pavlova

KOSHKIN FEDERING

Our cat had kittens in the spring, but they were taken away from her. Just that day we caught a little hare in the forest.

We took it and put it on the cat. The cat had a lot of milk, and she willingly began to feed the hare.

So the hare grew up on cat's milk. They became very good friends and even sleep always together.

The funniest thing is that the cat taught the foster hare how to fight dogs. As soon as the dog runs into our yard, the cat rushes at him and scratches furiously. And after her, a hare runs up and drums with its front paws so that the dog's hair flies in clumps. All the dogs around are afraid of our cat and her hare fosterling.

FOCUS OF SMALL ROUND HEADS

Our cat saw a hollow in a tree and thought that there was a bird's nest there. She wanted to eat the chicks, climbed a tree and saw: at the bottom of the hollow, viper cubs swarm, writhe. Yes, how they hiss! The cat got scared, jumped from a tree - just to carry her legs away!

And in the hollow, there were not vipers at all, but chicks of the spiny head (verticillary). It is their trick to defend themselves from enemies: they turn their heads, turn their necks - their necks wriggle like snakes. Yes, while they still hiss like a viper. Everyone is afraid of poisonous vipers. Here are the little spinnerheads and imitate the viper to scare the enemies.

LEFT WITH NOSE

A big buzzard spotted a black grouse with a whole brood of yellow fluffy grouse.

Here, I think I'll have lunch.

He was already aiming to hit them from above, but then the grouse noticed him.

She shouted, and all the cubs disappeared in an instant. The sarych looked and looked, - there was not a single one, how they fell through the ground! He flew off to look for other prey for dinner.

Then the grouse called out again, and all around her fluffy yellow grouse jumped up on their legs.

They did not fall anywhere, but right there they lay, tightly clinging to the aemle. Come on, distinguish them from above from leaves, grass and clods of earth!

PREDATORY FLOWER

The mosquito flew and flew in the forest above the swamp - and he was tired, he wanted to drink. Sees: flower; the stalk is green, above - small white bells, below - round crimson leaves with a rosette around the stem. On the leaves - cilia, on the cilia light drops of dew shine.

The mosquito sat down on a leaf, dipped his nose into a drop, and the drop was sticky, sticky, a mosquito nose got stuck.

Suddenly, the cilia all stirred, stretched out like tentacles, grabbed the mosquito. The round leaf is closed, and there is no mosquito.

And when then the leaf opened again, an empty mosquito skin fell to the ground: the flower drank all the mosquito blood.

This is a terrible flower, a predatory flower - a sundew. He catches small insects and eats them.

BATTLE UNDERWATER

Underwater guys also love to fight, just like those that live on land.

Two frogs dived into the pond and saw there a strange lanky newt tadpole with four short legs.

"Here's a funny freak! thought the frogs. “We need to give him a beating.”

One frog grabbed the tadpole by the tail, and the other by the right front leg.

They rushed - the leg and tail remained with them, but the tadpole fled.

A few days later, the frogs again met this newt underwater. Now it was a real freak: instead of a tail, it had a paw, and instead of a torn off paw, a tail.

Tritons grow tails even better than lizards, grow severed legs. Only sometimes confusion occurs, and in place of the torn off part, they grow another, not suitable for this place.

NOT WIND, NOT BIRDS, BUT WATER

I wanted to tell you about stonecrop when it was still in bloom. I love this little plant. I especially like its plump, swollen gray-green leaves, which sit on the stalk so densely that it is not visible. And stonecrop flowers are good: bright pentagonal stars.

But now they are gone. Instead of them - fruits, also flat pentagonal stars. They are tightly closed. But this does not mean that the seeds are not ripe. Stonecrop fruits are always closed on a clear day.

Now I will make them open. Bring only some water from the puddle. One drop is enough. Here she is right in the middle of the star. And I achieved my goal: the leaves of the fruit began to unfold. Here are the seeds. They do not hide from water, like the seeds of many plants; they go out to meet her. Two more drops, and the seeds floated. The water picked them up, carried them away and sowed them.

It is not the wind, not the birds, not the animals that help the stonecrop to disperse the seeds, but the water. I saw a stonecrop in a crack on a sheer cliff. It was the rain, flowing down the stone wall, that carried its seeds there.

N. Pavlova

GUGUIK*

I went to the lake to swim. I look - guguik (dive) teaches his guguichs to swim away from people. Guguik floats like a boat, and they dive. They will dive, and he will swim to that place and look around. Finally, they surfaced near the reeds, swam into the reeds, and I began to swim.

Leskor Popov Valentin

GREAT FRUIT

The stork, which has such wonderful fruits, is a weed. It grows in gardens. This is a nondescript rough plant with unpretentious crimson flowers.

Now some of them have managed to bloom, and in their place a “stork’s beak” sticks out from each cup. Each beak is five fruitlets fused with tails. It is easy to separate them. with a sickle, and below it is rolled up with a screw.This screw unwinds from dampness.

I will put the fruit between my palms, I will breathe. Twisted, tickled. And indeed, there is no more screw - untwisted. But then he lay a little on the palm of his hand and again twists.

Why does the plant need such a focus? And here: falling, the fruit sticks into the ground, and its tail is hooked by the end-sickle for blades of grass. In wet weather, the screw unwinds, and the pointed fruit is screwed into the ground.

But there is no turning back for him: the bristles will not let him in, they stick up, rest against the ground and will not let him in.

Here's how cunning: the plant itself plants its seeds in the ground!

And how sensitive the tail of the stork is, it can be seen from the fact that they used to be used for hydrometers - instruments that measure air humidity. The fruit will be fixed motionless, and the tail serves as an arrow, moves and indicates on the divisions what the humidity is.

N. Pavlova

CRAP*

I walked along the river bank, I look - on the water, it’s not ducklings, or someone else, they don’t look like ducklings. I think, who are these - because ducklings have flat noses, and these noses are sharp?

I quickly undressed and swam after the ducklings. They are from me to the other side, I follow them. That's just to catch - they are back to the shore! I am behind them, they are away from me. They took me down the river and tortured me so much, I barely swam to the shore! So I didn't catch it.

After many times I saw them, but I no longer swam after them. And these were not ducklings, but grebes (crested grebe) children - grebes.

Lescor L. Kurochkin

From the youngster's diary

LILIES OF THE VALLEY AT THE END OF SUMMER

5th of August. - Lilies of the valley live in the garden behind the stream. More than all other flowers, I love this lily of the valleys, blooming in May, - this is how the great scientist Linnaeus called the lily of the valley in Latin. For that I love that its modest flower bells are such porcelain whiteness, the green leg is so flexible, the long leaves are cool and moist, its aroma is so wonderful, and the whole flower is somehow clean and morning. In the spring, I run early across the stream for lilies of the valley, every day I bring a fresh bouquet of them, put them in the water, and they smell fragrant in the hut all day long. Near Leningrad, lilies of the valley bloom in June.

But now - at the end of summer - my favorite flowers have brought me new joy.

By chance, I noticed something reddish under their large pointed leaves. She knelt down, parted the leaves, and under them were orange-red hard, slightly oblong drops of small fruits. Beautiful, like flowers, and they are asking me to make earrings out of them for all my girlfriends.

Lescor Verica

BLUE AND GREEN

August 20th. - Today I got up early, early, looked out the window - and gasped: such blue, absolutely blue grass! And everything bends under the weight of dew, everything sparkles.

Mix paints - white with green, it will be blue. So the dew, showering the bright green grass, turned it blue. Through the blue meadow, green paths run from the bushes to the barn. This is a brood of gray partridges that has come running to peck at the grain in the village while people are sleeping: there are sacks of bread in the barn. There they are on the current - blue hens with a chocolate horseshoe on their chests. Spouts bale-turyuryuk-turyuryuk! Hurry before people wake up.

And then - near the forest itself - the still uncompressed oats are also all blue. There is a hunter with a gun in his hands. I know that he is stalking a brood of grouse, which their mother brought out of the forest to feed in the field. Their nabrods in blue oats are also green: passing, the black grouse shook off the dew. The hunter does not shoot; apparently, the black grouse managed to take her brood back into the forest.

Lescor Verica

SAVE THE FOREST!

The trouble is if lightning falls on a dry forest. The trouble is if someone throws an unextinguished match in the forest or puts out the fire poorly.

A thin snake ran from the fire a live light - and disappeared into the moss, in a pile of dry needles, foliage. Suddenly he jumped out of it, licked a bush, ran to a pile of deadwood...

Don't waste a second: it's a runaway fire - you yourself can handle it while it's small, weak. Quickly break fresh leafy branches - and beat them, beat the fire, knock it down, whip it with all your strength - do not let it grow, run from place to place! And call your friends for help.

If you have a shovel or even a strong stick at hand, dig the earth, throw earth and pieces of turf on the fire.

If the fire managed to rise from the ground and went to spread from tree to tree, this is already an epidemic, or crown fire. Run as fast as you can to people, sound the alarm.

WAR IN THE FOREST

(Continuation)

The third felling, where our correspondents moved, was the place where the logging was about ten years ago. And this felling was still dominated by aspens and birches.

The winners did not let anyone into their land. Every spring, the grassfolk tried to break out of the ground, but quickly died out under the shady leafy tent. Every two or three years there was a harvest of spruce seeds, and the fir trees sent new troops to clear the area. But they never rose from the ground: birches and aspens drowned them out..

Young trees grew by leaps and bounds. They towered over the clearing in a dense crowd. They were getting tight. And so they began to fight among themselves.

Everyone wanted to grab more space for themselves underground and above the ground. Each tree, growing, expanded and crowded, pushed neighbors. The crowd went to the clearing, crush.

Strong trees overtook the weak in growth: the strong have stronger roots and longer branches. A strong tree rises, stretches out a branch-hand over the head of the neighbors, and they will sit down under his arm. And sit down - say goodbye to the sun.

In the dense shade, the last weak trees were dying out. The undersized grass folk finally made their way out of the ground. But he was no longer afraid of tall trees: let him swarm at his feet, warm them. The victors' own offspring - their seeds - fell into this dark and damp cellar, suffocated and died.

And the firs patiently continued every two or three years to send their air fleet to the overgrown clearing. The winners did not even notice this smallness. Yes, and what to them: let these swarm there, in the basement.

The little Christmas trees finally came out of the ground. They had a bad life in darkness and dampness. Still, there was enough sunlight to grow. They grew up thin and frail. But here the wind did not touch them, did not pull them out of the ground. Even in a strong storm, when birches and aspens hummed and bent, it was quiet in the basement under them.

There was also enough food and it was warm. Here, the small Christmas trees were well protected from dangerous spring mornings and severe winter frosts, not like in a bare clearing. Since autumn, a fallen leaf of birches and aspens has rotted on the ground and provided warmth. The grass folk also gave warmth. It was only necessary to patiently endure the eternal twilight of the cellar.

Young spruces are not so light-requiring as birches and aspens; they endured and grew.

Our correspondents took pity on them and moved to the fourth clearing.

We are waiting for their reports.

COLLECTIVE CALENDAR

It's time to harvest. Seem endless, like the sea, rye and wheat fields of native collective farms. The ear is tall, strong, thick, it stores a lot of grain in itself. Collective farmers have worked hard. Soon this grain will flow like a golden stream into the state and collective farm bins.

The flax is already ripe. Collective farmers came out to carry him. And they do it with machines. They pull him with flax pickers; machine after all where sooner! Collective farmers walk behind the car, and row after row they knit fallen flax into sheaves, sheaves into weaves—ten sheaves per sheave. And soon the field is covered exactly with formations of pawns.

A field cockerel with a partridge and with all their grown partridges had to move from the winter rye field to the spring fields.

Rye is harvested. Tight, strong ears fall under the reaper's steel toothy saw, sheaf after sheaf. Collective farmers knit sheaves, put them in wort. And the gophers stand in the field, like rows of athletes in a parade.

Carrots, beets and other vegetables ripened in the garden. Collective farmers took them to the station, trains rolled to the cities - and all the townspeople these days have delicious fresh cucumbers, red beetroot soup, pies with carrots.

Collective farm guys gather mushrooms, ripe raspberries and lingonberries in the forest. And where there is hazel, you can’t drive the kids out of it these days: they collect nuts, stuff their pockets full.

And adults now have no time for nuts: they need to reap bread, they need to knock out flax on the threshing floor, they need to go through all the plowing with hasty springs, harrow: soon they will sow winter crops.

FRIENDS OF THE FOREST*

Many forests perished in our country during the Great Patriotic War. Forestries are trying to restore forests. The students of our high school help them with this.

To plant a new pine forest, hundreds of kilograms of cones are needed. The guys collected seven and a half tons of pine cones in three years. They help prepare the soil, care for plantings, protect forests from fires.

Leskor Alexander Tsarev

EVERYONE FOUND A JOB

In the morning, at dawn, all the collective farmers are at work. And where there are adults, there are children. At the mowing, in the field, in the garden, they help the collective farmers.

Here the guys appeared with a rake. They quickly raked the hay, and then, having loaded the wagons, went to the collective farm hayloft.

The guys did not give rest to the weeds either: flax crops and a potato field were cleared of sedge, quinoa, horsetail.

When the time came to pull the flax, the guys came to the flax field before the cars.

They removed the flax in the corners of the field, so that it became convenient for the tractor with the puller to make turns.

There was also work on the rye stubble. The guys raked and collected ears of corn after harvesting.

Kolkhoz "Big Fields"

Slavkovsky district

Pskov region

Collective farm news

Reported by N. Pavlova

News came to the Krasnaya Zvezda collective farm from the fields. The cereals say: “Everything is fine with us. The grains are ripe, we will soon begin to drop them on the ground. You don’t have to worry about us anymore and don’t even look at the fields. ".

The farmers smiled.

— No matter how! Don't look at the fields! Now is the best job! Tractors with combines left for the fields. The combine is a jack of all trades: it reaps, and threshes, and blows. A harvester drove into the field - rye is taller than a man. I left the field - only a low bristle remained. And the harvester gives the collective farmers already clean grain. The collective farmers dried it, poured it into bags and took it to the state to hand it over.

YELLOWED FIELD

Our correspondent visited the Red Banner collective farm. He noticed that there are two potato fields on this collective farm, and one of them is large, dark green, and the other is small, yellowed. The potato tops turned yellow on it, as if they were going to die,

Our correspondent decided to find out what's the matter. He told us the following.

Yesterday a rooster climbed into the yellowed field, dug up the ground, called the chickens and began to treat them with fresh potatoes. A collective farmer who was passing by saw this, laughed and said to her friend:

- Look you! Petya was the first to start harvesting our early potatoes. Apparently, he learned that tomorrow we will start digging it.

From here it became clear that the yellowed potato was early, it had already ripened, and therefore its tops turned yellow. And late potatoes are planted on a dark green large field.

FOREST NEWS

In the collective farm forest, the first mushroom came out from under the ground. Strong, thick!

There is a hole on the hat, and a wet fringe along the edges. Pine needles stuck to her. The earth is raised around the breast. Digging around here - how many more milk mushrooms, milk mushrooms, milk mushrooms and milk mushrooms you will find!

Letter from afar

BIRD ISLAND *

We went by ship in the eastern part of the Kara Sea. All around was water without end and without edge.

Suddenly Mars shouts:

- Right on the nose of the mountain upside down!

“What did he dream about?” I thought, and climbed up the mast.

It was clear that we were going straight to a rocky island hanging in the air with its top down.

Rocks hang upside down in the sky and do not rely on anything.

“My friend,” I said to myself, “you have a twisted brain!

But then he remembered: "Refraction!" - and laughed. This is such an amazing natural phenomenon.

Here, in the polar seas, there are these phenomena of refraction, or mirages. Suddenly, a distant shore or a ship becomes visible, turned upside down, that is, its inverted reflection in the air, as in the viewfinder of a camera.

Several hours passed, and we came to a distant island. He, of course, did not even think of hanging upside down in the air, but calmly protruded from the water with all his rocks. Having decided and looking at the map, the captain said that this is the island of Bianchi, located at the entrance to the Nordenskiöld archipelago. It is named after the Russian scientist, the same Valentin Lvovich Bianki, whose memory is dedicated to "Lesnaya Gazeta". Therefore, I thought that you might be interested to know how this island looks and what is on it.

The island represents. a heap of rocks, huge boulders and stone slabs. There are no bushes or grass on them, in some places only pale yellow and white small flowers shine, and on the leeward, southern side, the rocks are covered with lichens and very short moss. There is moss here, reminiscent of our saffron mushrooms - soft and juicy; I haven't seen this anywhere else. And where the coast is gently sloping, whole piles of driftwood are piled up, that is, logs, trunks and boards brought here by the ocean, maybe thousands of kilometers away. This forest is so dry that it rings even from a light blow with a bent finger.

Now - at the end of July - summer is just beginning here. And this does not prevent ice floes and small icebergs, dazzlingly sparkling in the sun, to calmly sail past the island. The fogs here are so thick and so low that you see only the masts of a ship passing through the sea. However, courts here are a rarity. The island is deserted - and this is the reason that the animals here are not afraid of people at all - you can pour salt on anyone's tail, if only you had salt with you.

Bianchi Island is a real bird paradise. Bird markets - rocks where tens of thousands of birds nest in great crowding - are not here. But many birds nest freely throughout the island. Thousands of ducks, geese, swans, loons, all kinds of waders nest here. Above them on the bare rocks live gulls, guillemots, and fulmars. There are all sorts of seagulls here: white and black-winged, small pink and fork-tailed, and huge predatory burgomasters that eat eggs, chicks and animals. There is also a large white snowy owl. They sing like larks, rising into the air, beautiful white-winged, white-breasted snow buntings; sing, running along the ground, black-bearded polar larks with sharp black horns.

And the beast is here!

I took breakfast and went to sit on the shore behind the cape. I’m sitting, and all around me, pieds are darting about - small rodents, fluffy, gray-black-yellow colors.

There are a lot of arctic foxes on the island - polar chanterelles. I saw one among the stones: he was sneaking up on the chicks of gulls, who still did not know how to fly. Suddenly, the seagulls noticed him, and how they pounced all in a crowd - with a cry, noise! The thief tucked his tail—and with all his legs!

Here the birds know how to stand up for themselves and their chicks will not be offended. They made the animal starve.

I started looking out to sea. There were also many birds swimming there.

I whistled. And suddenly, near the shore, round, sleek heads poked out of the water, dark eyes stared at me with curiosity: what kind of stuffed animal is this and what is it whistling for?

They were seals - small seals.

Then - farther - a very large seal appeared - a sea hare. Then baleen walruses - even more of his growth. And suddenly everyone disappeared under the water, and the birds rose into the air with a cry: a polar bear, the strongest and most predatory animal of the polar countries, floated past the island, sticking one head out of the water.

I was hungry and missed my breakfast. I well remembered that I had placed it on the rock behind me; but he wasn't there. It was not even under the stone.

I jumped to my feet.

A fox darted from behind a stone.

Thief, thief, thief, thief! It was he who crept up and stole my breakfast: in his teeth he had a piece of paper in which I wrapped the sandwiches.

This is what the birds of a decent beast have brought here!

Sea navigator

Kirill Martynov

STORIES BY KIT VELIKANOVA

ANGLER'S STORY

I like to sit with a fishing rod somewhere on the banks of a river or lake. You sit quietly, almost motionless, you don't frighten anyone, but you see a lot of things around you. Bird-animals will get used to you - some, perhaps, will even consider you for an inanimate stump - and they will crawl out without fear. Here, it happens, you will see such a dives and nothing more! And whether a fish pecks or has no appetite for my worm, this is a secondary matter for me; I’ll look at something interesting, and I’ll forget to look at the float. Or else, it happens, I think about this, about that, and about nothing else - and I don’t notice how I doze off.

Last time - at the very beginning of summer it was - I was sitting here under a cliff on the lake. The sun bakes so tenderly, - instead of a fish, I nod myself. He pecked harder once, - he almost fell off the stump. Well, of course, I cheered up, looked around sternly: is anyone looking at me, is anyone laughing at me? Yes, there is no one nearby, only swifts scurry back and forth overhead, they catch flies in the air, they fly into a precipice. In the precipice they have mink holes - only, it’s true, testicles were laid there.

He looked down into the grass—fathers of light! - right under my feet is the fable of grandfather Krylov: a dragonfly and an ant! A dragonfly on a blade of grass is blue-blue, wings are like an airplane, - it sits, it listens to the ant. And the hard-working ant in front of her very nose moves his antennae, such a serious one, - he explains something to her. About the fact, probably, that you can’t sing and dance all summer long - you need to think about winter! And the dragonfly - flutter! — and flew away. She sat on a float with me.

Well, I laughed at them, raised my head, I see: something is turning white there on that low bank? I looked through the binoculars - I always have binoculars with me when fishing - my fathers! - Yes, this is a white seagull sitting on a stump! Not standing on its feet, as gulls always do, but lying on its belly on a stump, like a lion on a pedestal - you know, at least like in Leningrad near the Admiralty, right next to the Palace Bridge.

What a focus!

He moved the binoculars back and forth - and there the head sticks out above the stump, and there is the tail, and there ... Why are they all here - have they gone crazy!

And these devils upset me so much that I even got sucked in the pit of my stomach. “I must,” I think to myself, “at least kill a worm. "

I had a basket of large strawberries "Victoria" with me - I took it with me from home just in case: I suddenly get hungry ... So I cleaned it in one minute. It's delicious - strawberries - like strawberries!

I sit, I look at the lake, I calm down. There are green thickets off the coast, and the green color is for sure! - most useful for nerve disorders, better than valerian soothes. Along the shores, there are different kinds of reeds - you know, one with such big brown things like lamp glasses, the other - cranked, like bamboo, with such hard pipes with long sharp leaves. And the reed, too, is soft like that: squeeze it with your fingers, and inside it is loose, like a sponge, and it has no leaves at all. What doesn't grow in water!

I looked at the green, again I began to look at my float. And how he twitches - kick! — and under the water! Yes, he stayed there.

“Healthy, then,” I think to myself, “the fish took it!”

Jumped to his feet - and hooked. Only from my hooking ... nothing came of it: the rod bent into an arc, and the fish did not even appear on the surface. I had to start guiding the fish and little by little choose the line. I pull it towards me, I pull it… It’s already clear that something big and dark is in the depths, but I can’t see what it is.

Then how to sod! Wow! Animal on a hook! Yes, scary: the head is round, mustachioed, he is fat, fat, and the tail!

As soon as I saw him, my soul was on my heels: all kinds of precious animals were bred here, and I answer for them! This fool was flattered by my worm, swallowed it, - at least call a doctor, do an operation for him!

It turned out to be a beaver, a beaver. Fortunately, he did not take the hook deep, and I easily pulled it out of his pasture. I let him into the lake, - as if he were splashing his tail on the water, - I already shuddered!

They say that fishing with a rod is a calm, quiet occupation. Here's some quiet for you! I scared all the fish in the lake. After all, the fish are like this: one fell off the hook, - now he will tell all his girlfriends: “There is a fisherman sitting there, don’t go there and most of all don’t touch the worms there: there are worms with hooks!” Of course, the fish does not scream like that under water - humanly, the fish do not know how to talk to each other, - well, but still some kind of, they say, "signal system" - the third there, or which one? -they have. They always warn their people of danger. And then the beaver will slap the water with his shovel, so even though he is not a fish, it is still clear to every little fish that, they say, "save yourself, who can!"

I took a fishing rod - anyway now it's useless to fish in this place. I moved further along the shore - into the bushes. I just threw a fishing rod - a birdie came to me from the bushes! Throws me, right in the face. Screaming: “Whose? Whose? Whose?"—quite like a canary. And she herself is the size of a canary, only such a nondescript one, all brown. The beak seems to be like that of a sparrow.

Well, of course, I instantly realized that she had chicks somewhere. I put down my fishing rod and went into the bushes. I looked a little, and in fact I see: a nest! Only here it is surprising: exactly the same brown bird sits on it. She stared at me with one eye, staring with fear, but does not fly away.

I had to gently poke her with my finger. Then she flew off.

I looked into the nest - and gasped! Five testicles lie on the bottom. Rostochkom are all the same, but the color is completely different! One is blue with black dots, the other is all red dotted, the third is spotted with gray, the fourth is bluish-green, and the fifth is pure pink. Well, straight vinaigrette and vinaigrette!

I marveled at such a miracle of nature - and quickly get out of here, from the bush, so as not to disturb this amazing little mother: no matter how she has left her nest.

I returned to the fishing rod - and now I noticed where that fighting bird flew out from again: it turns out - from a completely different side. Searched this side. The little bird plays with me just like in “cold - hot!” Plays: now quieter, more quietly screams, then louder - as soon as I start to approach her nest. Well, it’s not hard to find. The straw nest was placed in the same bush as that one, in currants, or something. And also not high: a little over a meter from the ground. But this one already had chicks: still tiny, naked, blind. And my mother is worried about them, my mother grabbed my hand right - and pinches beak, pinch!

“Look, I think, a hero! Why, I'll hit you - I'll get angry - you'll be wet! Well, stop, little one, stop, don't fight!"

I walked a little to the side, picked up caterpillars of various small and larger ones on the branches, went up to the nest, and held it out to the bird in the palm of my hand. She - imagine! - I immediately understood, flew into my hand, grabbed one caterpillar - and to the children. She put it into the first open mouth she came across and back into my palm.

Isn't it a wonder? A wild bird completely unfamiliar to you suddenly flies up to you, screams at you, pinches you, and when you offer caterpillars, it calmly takes them from your hands and feeds them to your chicks! Now, when the bird saw that I, as they say, "do not harbor any hostile intentions against her," she allowed me to sit quietly and fish. But still, the fish did not bite.

I sat and sat, and then the cuckoo began to scream and tear in the forest. My heart breaks when I hear her complain. I always remember the pitiful song of my old grandmother:

Far beyond the river

Occasionally distributed:

"Ku-ku! Ku-kuu!"

Lost the children

Pity her poor thing!

In fact: what a longing - to lose all your children! I wound up my fishing rod and went home.

Kit Velikanov

HUNTING

What kind of hunting for game can be until the chicks grow up and learn how to fly well? Don't hit the little ones. The law forbids touching the beast and bird at this time.

However, even in summer it is allowed to beat birds of prey that eat forest cubs, to beat dangerous and harmful animals.

NIGHT FEARS

In the summer you will leave the house at night, and from the forest how it will hoot, how it will laugh - it’s even creepy, goosebumps will run down your back!

And then from the attic or from the roof someone will buzz in the dark in a dull voice, as if calling with him:

- Let's go to! Let's go to! At the cemetery!..

And immediately two round greenish fires will light up in the black air - two ominous eyes, and someone's noiseless shadow will flash, almost hitting his face. How not to get scared here?

Out of fear, people began to hate owls and owls. After all, it is owls at night that laugh piercingly in the forest, and the little owl calls with an ominous voice:

- Let's go, let's go!

Even in the daytime, it is easy to be frightened of them, when a head with huge yellow eyes suddenly pops out of a dark hollow and loudly clicks with a hooked beak.

And if there is a commotion in the middle of the night, hens start croaking in the chicken coops, ducks quack, geese chirp, and in the morning the owner runs out of chickens, he will so bluntly put all the blame on an owl or an owl.

BREAKING IN BROAD DAY

Not only at night, but also in broad daylight, there is no rest for the collective farmers from the bird of prey.

The hooker gaped - the kite picked up a chicken from her.

The rooster jumped up on the fence - the hawk is his cock! Pigeons rose from the rooftops - out of nowhere a falcon. Crashed into a flock, hit once - only fluff all around; picked up a dead dove - and remember its name.

So if a collective farmer comes across a predator, an angry person will not make out who is right and who is wrong - he will kill any bird that has a hooked nose and long claws. He will get down to business, bring out all the birds of prey around, and then he will only catch himself: the mice in the fields will be divorced visibly-invisibly, the gophers will eat all the bread, the hares will gnaw all the cabbage.

And there will be a big loss for the economy of the uncalculating collective farmers.

WHO IS THE ENEMY, WHO IS A FRIEND

To prevent this from happening, you must first of all learn well to distinguish harmful birds of prey from useful ones. Harmful - those that beat game and poultry. Useful - those that destroy mice, voles, ground squirrels and our other destroyers - rodents and grasshoppers, locusts - harmful insects.

Here are owls and owls, no matter how terrible they look, they are all almost useful. Only the largest of our owls are harmful - the huge eared owl and large round-headed owls. Yes, and they often catch rodents.

Of the diurnal birds of prey, the most harmful are hawks. We have two of them: a large goshawk and a small (thinner and slightly longer than a dove) sparrowhawk.

Hawks are easy to distinguish from other predators. They are gray in color, with wavy streaks on the chest; they have a small, low-browed head and light yellow eyes; the wings are round, the tail is long.

Hawks are terribly strong and angry birds. They beat prey larger than themselves and do not hesitate to kill birds, even when they are full.

The kite, which is easily recognizable by its tail forked at the end, is much weaker than the hawk. He does not dare to attack big game, but only looks where he can drag away a stupid little chicken or peck at carrion.

Large falcons are also harmful.

They have sharp, sickle-curved wings. They fly faster than all other birds and always beat their prey on the fly, high above the ground, so as not to break their chest on the ground if the game dodges the blow.

It is better not to touch small falcons - among them there are very useful ones.

For example: kestrel or shaker.

The red-haired kestrel can often be seen above the fields. She hangs in the air, as if suspended from the clouds on an invisible thread, and shakes her wings (for this she is called "shaker"): this is how she looks out for mice, grasshoppers, locusts in the grass.

Eagles do more harm than good.

BIRDS OF PREY HUNT

Harmful birds of prey are allowed to shoot all year round. There are different ways to hunt them.

At the nests

The easiest way to get predators is at their nests. But this is a dangerous hunt.

Protecting the chicks, large birds of prey rush straight at the person with a cry. You have to shoot close. They shoot quickly, offhand: otherwise you can be left without eyes. But finding a nest is very difficult. Eagles, hawks, falcons make their homes on impregnable rocks or on tall trees in dense forests. The Eagle Owl and the Great Owl are on the rocks and on the ground, in a thick thicket.

Hunt stealth

Eagles and hawks often sit down to look for prey on haystacks, willows and isolated dry trees. They don't let people close to them.

Here they are mined stealthily, that is, sneaking up from behind a bush or stone. You have to shoot with a bullet from a long-range rifle.

With an owl

An eagle owl is kept for hunting diurnal birds of prey.

The hunter drives a stick with a crossbar somewhere on a hillock, a few steps from it breaks a dry tree into the ground, and builds a hut nearby.

In the morning, the hunter comes with an eagle owl, puts him on a stick with a crossbar, ties him, and hides himself in a hut.

You don't have to wait long: as soon as a hawk or a kite notices a monster, they rush to him. Everyone wants to repay the enemy for his nightly robberies.

Birds circle, attack him, sit on a dry tree and shout at the robber.

The tied eagle owl will only split all over, clapping its eyes, clicking its beak, but it cannot do anything to it.

Furious predators do not pay attention to the hut. Here, shoot them.

dark night

The most interesting hunt for predators is at night. Where old eagles and other large predators fly to spend the night is not difficult to notice. The eagle, for example, where there are no rocks, usually sleeps on the tops of large individual trees.

The hunter chooses a darker night and goes to such a tree.

A sleeping eagle will let you under the very tree. The hunter suddenly directs a bright beam of a strong hidden lantern (electric or acetylene), previously lit under the lid, at him. The eagle, awakened by an unexpected light, squints and squints. He is blinded, does not understand anything - he sits as if stunned.

And the hunter can see clearly from below. He takes aim and shoots.

OPENING OF THE SUMMER HUNTING

Since the end of July, the hunters have been impatient, the hunters are nervous: the broods have already grown up, and the start of the hunt has not yet been appointed by the Regional Executive Committee.

Here, finally, they waited: the newspapers announced that hunting for forest and marsh game this year is allowed from the sixth of August.

Each of them has long been full of cartridges, the gun has been inspected many times.

And on the fifth day, after the end of the service, all the city stations are filled with people with guns and dogs.

There are no dogs here! Short-haired cops and pointers with straight, like a rod, tails. They are of various colors: white with small yellow spots, yellow-piebald, coffee-piebald, white with large black spots on the eye, on the ear, all over the body, dark coffee, completely black with a sheen. And long-haired, with tails like a feather, setters: white, in black, speckled with blue, with large black spots; “red” setters are all fiery yellow, yellow-red, almost red, and setters are large, heavy, slow, black with yellow tan. All of these are pointing dogs, all bred for one purpose: for summer brood hunting; smelling game, make a stand: freeze and wait for the owner to come up.

And there are other small dogs, very long-haired, short-legged, with ears hanging almost to the floor, with a stump instead of a tail. These are spaniels. They do not have a stand, but with them it is very convenient to hunt ducks in the grass and reeds, and black grouse in the forest support.

From the water, from a thick thicket of bushes, reeds - the spaniel will drive game from everywhere, bring a dead or only wounded bird - and hand it over to the owner.

Most of the hunters got into country trains by wagons. Everyone is looking at them, looking at beautiful dogs. In the carriages there was only talk about game, and about dogs, and about guns, and about hunting exploits. And the hunters feel like heroes, proudly look at the "ordinary public" that goes without guns and without dogs.

And on the sixth in the evening, on the seventh early in the morning, the same trains carry the same passengers back. But alas! - many hunters do not have a victorious look at all. Skinny backpacks hung sadly on their backs.

The "ordinary public" greets recent heroes with smiles.

- And where is the game?

- The game remained in the forest.

— Flew across the sea to die.

But a whisper of admiration greets a hunter entering one of the small stations: his backpack is full. He, not looking at anyone, is looking for somewhere to sit down - and they immediately give him a place. He importantly sits down. But the perceptive neighbor is already announcing to the whole car:

- Uh! .. Yes, you have game with green paws! - And unceremoniously lifts the edge of the backpack.

From there, the tips of spruce branches protrude. Embarrassment!

Hit the answer right on target!

COMPETITION FIFTH

1. - When do birds have a tooth?

2. -Which cow lives better - tailed or tailless?

3. - Why was this (see figure) spider given the name "haymaker"?

4. - At what time of the year do predatory animals and birds live most satisfyingly?

5. - Who is born twice, dies once?

6. - Who will be born three times before becoming an adult?

7. - Why do they say: "water off a duck's back"?

8. - Why does a dog, when it is hot, stick out its tongue, but not a horse?

9. - The chicks of which bird do not know their mother?

10. - What bird's chicks hiss from a hollow like snakes?

11. - How to distinguish between an old and a young rook by their noses?

12. What kind of fish takes care of its children until they grow up?

13. - What happens to a bee after it stings?

14. - What do newborn bats eat?

15. — Where is the “face” of the sunflower head at noon?

16. - There is a tour in the mountains, and a turikha along the borders; the tour will shout, and the turiha will blink.

17. - In the morning the field is blue, in the afternoon it is green.

18. - Old men with red hats are standing. Whoever approaches, he will bow.

19. - Sits on a stick in a red shirt, the abdomen is light, stuffed with pebbles.

20. - From the bush, a thorn, by the leg, a tapul.

21 – Sleeps on the ground, and disappears in the morning.

22. - Who in the forest without axes builds a hut without corners?

23. - Eyes on the horns, and the house on the back.

24 – Angelic flowers, and devilish claws.

ADS

The fourth rank test is announced

SHARP EYE

Entitled

PUZZLES

WHO IS THE FATHER, WHO IS THE MOTHER, WHO IS THE CHILDREN

HELP THE HOME!

This month - the Month of Chicks - it is not uncommon to meet a chick that has fallen out of the nest or lost its mother. He lies on the ground or helplessly pokes his nose under every bush and hummock, wants to run away from you - a terrible two-legged giant - but his legs are weak, but he still cannot fly - and does not know what to do with himself. Of course you will catch him. You will hold it in your hands, examine it and guess:

- Who are you, little one? What kind of tribe? And where is your mother?

And he only beeps - so loudly, so pitifully: apparently, he is calling his mother. You yourself will want to return him to mom, dad. Yes, the question is: who are they?

Here you open your mouth: how to be? And you close your mouth and open your eyes. True, it is not very easy to guess who he is: after all, the little ones are so unlike their parents. And in birds, dad and mom are often very different from each other. But you have a keen eye for that. Look at the chick's legs and nose. Then look for similar legs and noses in adult birds - males and females. The plumage of the parents may be different, and the chick may not have it at all: it is in fluff or naked. And now you recognize his father and mother by the nose and paws. And you will return the lost homeless child to them.

black grouse

It is called so because it has a pigtailed tail. But don’t look at the tail: the grouse has a different shape, but the grouse doesn’t have it at all yet.

mallard duck

Flat from the toe. Her duckling and her drake, too. And between the fingers they have membranes. Take a good look, what membranes. Do not confuse ducks with grebe-diver.

mother finch

Like all songbirds, chaffinches hatch from eggs small, naked, helpless. Finches - father and mother - are similar to each other in figure, height, tail, but not in plumage. You can also recognize a chaffinch by its paws.

Falcon Falcon - mother

Birds of prey have crooked noses and clawed paws. And the falcon is the same.

Crested Grebe

Male. The female looks like him. And you can easily recognize the chick by the webs on the fingers and by the nose, which is not at all like a duck.

Here, the portraits of five different chicks and their parents are placed in a row. Take a piece of paper and redraw them all in such an order that each chick has its father on the left, and its mother on the right.

COLUMBA CLUB

month five

— The search for the disappeared. - Terrible night. - Underworld America. - Wild chicken. - Departure of swifts.

The night was dark and rainy. None of the Columbuses slept. Vovk was the most worried. I didn't find a place. Rushed around the hut like a caged animal. Every now and then he jumped out into the rain, walked along the road to the lake. Tal-Tin suggested that Mi, Xi and Kolk spent the night in a village on the banks of the Prorva. Vovk insisted:

- I feel that something happened to Mi, some kind of misfortune. No wonder the name of the lake is so sinister!

When the lazy dawn peeped through the windows, the Columbuses set off in search of the missing. It was decided to go straight to the village of Berezhok on Prorva, but on the way to comb the dense forest surrounding the lake.

The rain had stopped, but underfoot there were puddles, mud, slush, especially when they finally entered the dark forest. It was decided that Puff, without haste, would go along the road and shout from time to time, and the other seven would go in a chain through the forest, whistling so as not to get lost. Mother Re stayed at home to feed the badger and all the chicks.

Vovk vigorously pushed through the thicket. As soon as the trees and bushes parted before him, his imagination immediately pictured to him in the dusk of the forest the corpse of Mi under a dark spruce. What could have happened to her and to his other two comrades, he could not imagine.

To the right and left, the neighbors in the chain whistled with their titmouse. Vovk answered them. He shuddered violently when something unexpectedly exploded from the bushes in front of him with a wild noise and rushed away, breaking branches with a crash with black wings. He did not immediately realize that this was a huge rooster of our forests - a capercaillie. In the morning twilight, the dense forest seemed to him mysterious and creepy, full of fantastic monsters. Suddenly he stood up: he fancied some sort of scream or groan in front of him. But where he came from, it was impossible to understand. Vovk strained his ears...

Vovk took off from his seat and, not understanding anything in front of him, rushed into the thicket of dense Christmas trees. Before he could make out a large hole ahead, he slipped and, feet first, flew headlong into the ground somewhere.

It is true that he was stunned by the fall and lost consciousness for a minute, so he could not immediately figure out where he was and who was saying in his ear in a hoarse voice: “Welcome! We've been waiting a long time. Make yourself at home!"

- Crap! Vovk swore. “It's dark as hell.

Turning his head with difficulty, - his neck hurt, - Vovk examined the bones slightly whitening in the darkness near him, and then Kolk standing to his full height.

“Where?” he began, turning his head. But then he saw: on the other side of him, Si was sitting and holding Mi's head on her lap.

"What's wrong with her?" Vovk screamed, jumping to his feet.

- Rubbish, rubbish! Mi replied. “I hurt my leg a little, that's all.

“Come on, spit it out,” said Kolk. "I've torn my throat out."

And, remembering the Columbuses looking for them, Vovk began to shout at the top of his lungs:

- Here! Here!

And behind him are the girls:

- Carefully! There's a hole!

- Hey, at the bottom! Why did you climb there? How do you feel? Do you have a wow?

— Exploring Underworld America! Vovk replied cheerfully. Mi sprained her leg. Depth six meters.

With difficulty, the unfortunate people were pulled out of a deep hole. A stretcher had to be built for Mi. The mighty Andes and Vovk dragged her home. At home, Kolk said:

- We lingered a little on the lake, walked through the forest already at dusk.

Mi walked ahead, in one place suddenly - I hear - she cried out in a dull way. I ran to her, and I followed her into that damned hole. And behind us - just out of comradely sympathy - Xi also slid down to the bottom of us.

It's dark there, in the dungeon, even if it's an eye! Well, when the eyes got used, they looked around somehow. One way is a corridor and the other is a corridor. It's clear: they got into the underground passage! I used to want to go explore - where the corridors lead - bending over you can go. Yes, the girls ask: do not leave - they say - we are scared! And it is impossible to get out of this damned well with poor Mi: the well is deep, the walls are clay, sheer ... And there is no hope for you: where will you look at night? Don't expect help before morning. And even then it is doubtful, in general, will you be able to find us?

Luckily, I had a full box of matches with me. I lit one - and immediately put it out as soon as possible: such devilry around! Everywhere under your feet bones and skeletons, however, are small, but still not very suitable company for girls, albeit unestok! I understood: hares, frogs, toads, snakes attacked here from above - the edges of the pit are slippery! - and there's no way they can get out!

Here we are sitting, sitting, it’s dark, there’s nothing to do, different thoughts crawl into our heads, we keep thinking what kind of underground passage is this, who dug it here and why? Xi says, “Probably, they were waiting for the Nazis here, preparing where to hide. The partisans, right, dug. And Mi remembered that she had read a fairy tale somewhere: there one merman lost a fish to another merman of his entire lake. He had to dig an underground passage from his lake to another. On it and overtook the fish. You can't dry with water.

As soon as she finished telling, she suddenly screamed:

- Ai! Eyes!.. Out! Over there!

Indeed, I also saw: two such ominous eyes lit up at these words in complete darkness, that I, too, had a chill on my skin. Flashed green fire, then red - and went out.

“That merman is spying on us!” Xi whispers in a trembling voice.

- Shut up!

And his eyes lit up again. Oh, how I regretted that I did not take a gun with me! Of course, I immediately thought of the wolf. To bang into it—and that's the end of it! The girls clung to me, trembling - and what can I do? Whoever attacks, will you fight back with your bare hands? Clearly they are following us.

Then I realized: “After all, animals are very afraid of the human voice. Well, I’ll scare him!” He warned the girls in a whisper, and how I barked in a thunderous voice: “Wow-ta-ta-ta !!!”—The girls screamed, they completely deafened them.

“Thunder is hoarse, you got it,” Si noticed.

- Now - "hoarse", and there, I suppose, how glad they were that the eyes had disappeared.

“Then they reappeared anyway!” Xi didn't give up.

“It’s quite something for him,” Kolk continued, “probably he couldn’t run away: maybe soon the corridor ends there, or just a blockage there.

In general, I came up with the idea not to yell, but to burn matches. As soon as the eyes begin to approach, I - one! - strike a match - and into it! Well, summer: not such a long night. At last there was light above. And there Vovkin heard his voice: Mi immediately recognized him!

Xi confirmed that everything was exactly as Kolk said, and honestly confessed:

- Oh, and we, guys, have suffered fear! To tell the truth: Mi and I would die of fear, if not for our Kolk. Just think - how those terrible eyes will light up, - the heart in the heels - boom ... It seems that a monster is about to pounce on us - and our bones will crunch on his teeth!

What kind of animal was sitting in the underground passage remained unknown. Andes, Vovk and Kolk decided to find out the other day. But everyone had so many urgent things to do that the exploration of the mysterious dungeon had to be postponed.

On August 5, the hunt began. Vovk and Kolk now brought either black grouse, or duck, or Easter cakes every day. Columbus examined each bird in detail. Everything, down to the last feather in it, went into action: dimensions and weight were recorded, meat was fried, beautiful feathers went into bird albums, where they were glued with thin strips of paper by Xi. The Columbusians had a strict rule: he took the life of a beautiful creature, so keep at least a memory of him. Rare birds were skinned and stuffed with cotton wool or soft tow.

It turned out teterkin kukid. The next morning after the hen's egg was placed next to the grouse, the girls did not find the grouse in the nest: there were very cold - abandoned, that means - yellow-brown eggs and white shells were lying around. Where the chicken disappeared to is unknown. Had a wild hen pecked him out of anger because her chicks never hatched? Her four eggs were blown out by the Columbus - they all also turned out to be talkers, like the first. And suddenly one morning Kolk comes from the forest and says:

- I'm walking along the edge of the field near the dense forest - oats are sown there. I can see by the dew: there were black grouse here, they were covered in oats, they shook off the dew. Firr!—that's right: the grouse has risen! And behind it is a little grouse, all alone, and some kind of stupid one: not yellow, but all mottled, piebald! .. I lowered the gun: what is it?

The black grouse has flown away, and this weirdo is here and a bryak on a branch! Half a tree, I sat down so close that I could see without binoculars: it's a chicken! Our Pestrushka's son. That's great!

Then the aunt called him tenderly: Fiu! Fiu! Ko-ko-ko!" - he broke loose and flew. Yes, he flies so well, like a real grouse! Tell me, please: his stepmother taught him to fly! He flew to another tree - and hid in the branches, playing coronets with me. Well, I mean, wild chickens, real game for the hunter!

Kolk told all this at breakfast, when all the Columbuses were sitting at a common table under a large spruce. The already grown up chicks, who lived in the wild, flocked to them at mealtimes, sat on their shoulders, jumped on the table, picked up the crumbs.

Badger Bibishka obediently sat at L's feet and waited for something tasty to fall from the table?

August 21 has come - the annual day of the disappearance of our last swifts. Tal-Tin warned them of their departure at a certain time a week in advance, and the Columbuses were now convinced that these swift-winged birds strictly adhere to their calendar date, although they had nowhere to hurry: as many more of their game as flies and mosquitoes were flying in the air. The swallows, the nightjar, who also feed on flies, did not even think about flying away.

It was time for the Columbuses to gather in the city: from September 1, classes in schools will begin. A week later, the Columbus Club will return to Leningrad.

It was decided on the eve of the departure of the whole company to gather at Lake Prorva - to spend the whole day there on some island.

(To be continued)

Every year, in order to raise offspring, the vast majority of birds build nests. In temperate latitudes and in cold countries, nesting begins in spring and ends in summer, when the chicks are compared in size with adult birds. But this is not the case everywhere. After all, there are many places on the globe where there is no change of seasons. In some tropical countries, summer lasts all year, in other places there is an annual change of dry and rainy seasons.

How, then, to determine the time of reproduction of birds? For the entire globe, the rule is general: birds begin to nest at such a time that the feeding of the brood and the first days of the life of the chicks outside the nest fall on the most food-rich time. If we have it in spring and summer, then in the savannahs of Africa, most birds nest immediately after the start of the rains, when the vegetation develops violently and many insects appear. The exception here is birds of prey, especially those that feed on terrestrial animals. They nest only during drought. When the vegetation burns out, it is easy for them to find their prey on the ground, which has nowhere to hide. Birds nest in tropical forests throughout the year.

It is generally believed that all birds, when hatching chicks, build special nests for incubation of eggs. But this is not so: many birds nesting on the ground do without a real nest. For example, a small brownish-gray nightjar lays a couple of eggs directly on the forest floor, most often on fallen needles. A small depression is formed later, because the bird sits in the same place all the time. The circumpolar murre also does not build nests. She lays her single egg on the bare rock ledge of the bluff. Many gulls and waders need only a small depression in the sand, sometimes they use the footprint of a deer hoof.

Nightjar bird nests right on the ground. The whitening shell near the nest helps parents find their chicks in the dark.

Birds that raise chicks in hollows and burrows do not make a real nest. They are usually content with a small litter. In hollows, wood dust can serve as litter. In the kingfisher, the litter in the hole consists of small bones and scales of fish, in the bee-eater - from chitinous remains of insects. The woodpecker usually does not occupy the finished hollow. With his strong beak, he hollows out a new hollow for himself. The golden bee-eater for about 10 days digs with its beak in the soft clay of a cliff of one and a half and even two meters, which ends with an extension - a nesting chamber. Real nests are made by birds nesting in bushes and trees. True, not all of them are skillfully made. The dove, for example, folds several twigs on tree branches and somehow fastens them.

Thrushes build solid cup-shaped nests, and the song thrush smears it with clay from the inside. Birds, working from morning to late evening, spend about three days on the construction of such a nest. The finch arranges a warm, felt-like nest, moreover, with a soft lining, masking it from the outside with pieces of moss, fragments of lichen, and birch bark. Golden-yellow oriole hangs its nest - a skillfully woven basket - from a horizontal branch of an apple tree, birch, pine or spruce. Orioles sometimes tie the ends of two thin branches and place a nest between them.

Among the birds of our country, the most skillful nest-builder is undoubtedly the Remez. The male remez, having found a suitable flexible branch, wraps its fork with thin plant fibers - this is the basis of the nest. And then, together - a male and a female - they build a warm hanging mitten from vegetable fluff with an entrance in the form of a tube. Remez's nest is inaccessible to terrestrial predators: it hangs on thin branches, sometimes over a river or over a swamp.

In some birds, nests have a very peculiar appearance and complex structure. Living in Africa and on the island of Madagascar, the shadow heron, or hammerhead, makes a nest in the form of a ball of twigs, grass, reeds, and then closes it up with clay. The diameter of such a ball is more than a meter, and the diameter of the side tunnel, which serves as the entrance to the nest, is 20 cm. The Indian warbler-dressmaker sews a tube of one or two large woody leaves with vegetable "twine" and arranges a nest in it from reed fluff, cotton, wool.

The small salangan swift, living in Southeast Asia (and on the islands of the Malay Archipelago), builds a nest from its very sticky saliva. The layer of dried saliva is strong, but so thin that it shines through like porcelain. This nest is built for a long time - about 40 days. Birds attach it to a sheer rock, and it is very difficult to get such a nest. Salangan nests are well known in Chinese cooking under the name of swallow nests and are highly valued.

A relative of the salangana already known to us, the kleho swift attaches its small, almost flat nest to a horizontal branch only at the edge. A bird cannot sit on such a nest: it will break off. Therefore, the kleho incubates the egg, sitting on a branch, and only leans on it with its chest.

Chiffchaff feeds chicks that have just flown out of the nest.

The South American stove-bird builds its nest almost exclusively from clay. It has a spherical shape with a side entrance and really resembles the ovens of the local Indians. It is not uncommon for the same pair of birds to use a nest for several years. And many birds of prey have 2-3 nests, using them alternately. There are also species of birds in which several pairs make a common nest. Such, for example, are African weavers. However, in this common nest under one roof, each pair has its own nesting chamber and, in addition, there are also sleeping chambers for males. Sometimes uninvited "guests" appear in the common nest. For example, one of the chambers in the nest of weavers can be occupied by a pink parrot.

There are many species of birds in which nests are grouped very closely, in colonies. One species of American swallows builds clay bottle-shaped nests on cliffs, which are so closely molded to each other that from a distance they look like honeycombs. But more often the nests in the colony are separated from each other by a meter or more.

Remez's nest is built very skillfully.

Bird colonies in the north are huge - hundreds of thousands of pairs. These so-called bird colonies are inhabited mainly by guillemots. Small colonies are also formed by gulls and petrels nesting on the ground. Cormorants, pelicans and gannets nest in colonies on islands along the western coast of South America. Their nests have accumulated so much droppings over the centuries that it is developed and used as a valuable fertilizer (guano).

Large colonies are usually nested by those birds whose food is located near the nesting site, and, moreover, in large numbers. Cormorants on the islands of South America feed, for example, at the expense of large schools of anchovies, three-toed gulls from the bird colonies of the Barents Sea catch capelin without much difficulty. But often birds nest in colonies and fly far for food. Such birds are usually good flyers - these are swallows, swifts. Scattering in all directions, they do not interfere with each other to get food.

The forest horse arranges a real nest in the grass from dry blades of grass.

Those birds that do not have good flying abilities, and collect food by midge, by grain, nest far from each other, since when nesting in colonies they will not be able to collect enough food. These species of birds have feeding or nesting areas near their nests, where they do not allow competitors. The distance between the nests of these birds is 50-100 m. It is interesting that migratory birds usually return in the spring to their last year's nesting site.

All these features of bird biology should be well remembered when hanging artificial nests. If the bird is colonial, like a starling, nesting boxes (birdhouses) can be hung often, several on one tree. But this is not at all suitable for a great tit or a pied flycatcher. It is necessary that within each nesting site of tits there should be only one nest.

Chicks hatch in the nest of the redwing thrush. They are helpless for a long time, as in all nestling bird species, and fledge just before leaving the nest.

Some birds of prey, including owls, do not build nests at all, but capture ready-made strangers and behave in them like at home. A small falcon takes away nests from a rook or a raven; The saker falcon often settles in the nest of a crow or a heron.

Sometimes the nesting site is very unusual. Some small tropical birds hollow out caves for their nests in the nests of social wasps or even in termite mounds. A small loten nectary, living in Ceylon, looks for a network of a social spider in the bushes, squeezes out a depression in its densest part, makes a small lining, and the nest for her 2-3 testicles is ready.

Our sparrows often breed chicks in the walls of the nests of other, larger birds, such as a stork or a kite. Skillfully diving grebe (crested grebe) arranges a nest on the water. Sometimes its nest is fortified at the bottom of a shallow reservoir and rises as a small island, but more often it floats on the surface of the water. Surrounded by water and a coot's nest. This bird arranges even a gangway - on them the chicks can go down to the water and return to the nest. Small jacanas sometimes nest on the floating leaves of tropical aquatic plants.

Some birds make nests in human buildings. Sparrows - on the cornices and behind the window frames. Swallows nest at windows, jackdaws nest in chimneys, redstarts nest under canopies, etc. There was a case when a heater made a nest in the wing of an airplane while it was at the airfield. In Altai, a wagtail nest was found, twisted in the bow of a ferry boat. It “floated” every day from one shore to another.

Hornbills live in the tropics of Africa and South Asia. At the beginning of nesting, rhinos - male and female - choose a hollow suitable for the nest and cover up the hole. When there is a gap through which the bird can barely squeeze through, the female climbs into the hollow and already from the inside reduces the inlet so that she can only stick her beak into it. The female then lays her eggs and begins incubation. She receives food outside from the male. When the chicks hatch and grow up, the bird breaks the wall from the inside, flies out and begins to help the male get food for the growing brood. The chicks remaining in the nest restore the wall destroyed by the female and again reduce the hole. This nesting method is a good protection against snakes and predatory animals climbing trees.

No less interesting is the nesting of the so-called weed chickens, or big-footed ones. These birds live on the islands between South Asia and Australia, as well as in Australia itself. Some weed hens place their eggs in warm volcanic soil and don't take care of them anymore. Others rake up a large pile of decaying leaves mixed with sand. When the temperature inside the heap rises sufficiently, the birds tear it open, the female lays eggs inside the heap and leaves. The male restores the pile and stays near it. It does not incubate, but only monitors the temperature of the heap. If the heap cools down, it enlarges it; if it heats up, it breaks it. By the time the chicks hatch, the male also leaves the nest. Chicks start life on their own. True, they emerge from the egg with already growing plumage, and by the end of the first day they can even fly up.

In Great Grebe, as in all brood species of birds, chicks become independent very early. They have long been able to swim, but sometimes rest on the back of an adult bird.

When building a nest, not all birds have a male and a female working the same way. Males of some species arrive from wintering earlier than females and immediately start building. In some species, the male completes it, in others, the female completes the construction, or they build together. There are species of birds in which the male only carries the building material, and the female puts it in the right order. In goldfinches, for example, the male is limited to the role of an observer. In ducks, as a rule, only females build a nest, drakes do not show any interest in this.

Some birds (petrels, guillemots) lay only one egg each and nest once per summer. Small songbirds usually lay 4 to 6 eggs, and the great tit - up to 15. Many eggs are laid by birds from the hen order. The gray partridge, for example, lays 18 to 22 eggs. If for some reason the first clutch fails, the female lays another, additional one. For many songbirds, 2 or even 3 clutches per summer is normal. In the Thrush warbler, for example, the first chicks have not yet had time to fly out of the nest, when the female starts building a new nest, and the male alone feeds the first brood. In the water moorhen, the chicks of the first brood help their parents feed the chicks of the second brood.

In many species of owls, the number of eggs in a clutch and even the number of clutches varies depending on the abundance of food. Skuas, gulls, snowy owls do not hatch chicks at all if there is very little food. Crossbills feed on spruce seeds, and during the harvest years of spruce cones they nest in the Moscow region in December - January, not paying attention to frosts of 20-30 °.

Many birds begin incubation after the entire clutch has been laid. But among owls, harriers, cormorants, and thrushes, the female sits on the first laid egg. The chicks of these bird species are hatched gradually. For example, in the nest of a harrier, the eldest chick can weigh 340 g, and the youngest - the third one - only 128 g. The age difference between them can reach 8 days. Often the last chick dies due to lack of food.

As a rule, most often the female incubates the eggs. In some birds, the male replaces the female from time to time. In a few species of birds, for example, in the phalarope, painted snipe, three-fingered, only the male incubates the eggs, and the female does not show any concern for the offspring. It happens that males feed incubating females (many warblers, hornbill), in other cases, females still leave the nest and leave eggs for a while. Females of some species go hungry during incubation. For example, a female common eider does not leave the nest for 28 days. By the end of incubation, she becomes very thin, losing almost 2/3 of her weight. The female emu can starve during incubation without much harm to herself for up to 60 days.

In many passerine birds, as well as woodpeckers, kingfishers, storks, chicks are born blind, naked and helpless for a long time. Parents put food in their beaks. These birds are called chicks. As a rule, their chicks fledge in the nest and fly only after leaving the nest. Chicks of waders, ducks, gulls emerge from eggs sighted and covered with down. Having dried a little, they leave the nest and are able not only to move independently, but also to find food without the help of their parents. These birds are called brood. Their chicks grow and fledge outside the nest.

It rarely happens that an incubating bird, or especially a bird at the brood, tries to hide unnoticed at the moment of danger. Large birds, protecting their brood, attack the enemy. A swan can even break a person's arm with a blow of its wing.

More often, however, the birds "take away" the enemy. At first glance, it seems that the bird, saving the brood, deliberately distracts the attention of the enemy and pretends to be lame or shot. But in fact, the bird at this moment has two opposite aspirations-reflexes: the desire to run and the desire to pounce on the enemy. The combination of these reflexes creates the complex behavior of the bird, which seems conscious to the observer.

When the chicks have hatched from the eggs, the parents begin to feed them. During this period, only one female walks with black grouse, capercaillie and ducks with a brood. The male does not care about the offspring. Only the female incubates at the white partridge, but both parents walk with the brood and “take away” the enemy from it. However, in brood birds, parents only protect the chicks and teach them to find food. The situation is more complicated in chicks. As a rule, both parents feed here, but often one of them is more energetic and the other is lazier. So, in a large spotted woodpecker, the female usually brings food every five minutes and manages to feed the chicks three times until the male arrives with food. And in the black woodpecker, the chicks are fed mainly by the male.

In the sparrowhawk, only the male hunts. He brings prey to the female, who is inseparably at the nest. The female tears the prey into pieces and gives them to the chicks. But if the female died for some reason, the male will put the brought prey on the edge of the nest, and in the meantime the chicks will die of starvation.

Large birds cormorants usually feed chicks 2 times. per day, herons - 3 times, albatrosses - 1 time, and moreover at night. Small birds feed chicks very often. The great tit brings food to the chicks 350-390 times a day, the killer whale - up to 500 times, and the American wren - even 600 times.

The swift sometimes flies as far as 40 km from the nest in search of food. He brings to the nest not every caught midge, but a mouthful of food. He glues the prey with saliva. a lump and, having flown to the nest, deeply sticks balls of insects into the throats of the chicks. In the first days, the swifts feed the chicks in such enhanced portions up to 34 times a day, and when the chicks grow up and are ready to fly out of the nest, only 4-6 times. While the chicks of most bird species, having flown out of the nest, still need parental care for a long time and only gradually learn to find and peck prey without the help of their parents, the chicks of the swifts feed and fly on their own. Moreover, departures from the nest, they often immediately rush to the south. Sometimes the parents are still hovering over the houses, collecting food for their chick, and he, feeling strong enough, is already heading south without even seeing his parents goodbye.

At first, thrush chicks try to stick together.

Young Magpies deftly climb the branches of trees.

The chicks have just emerged from their nest in the hollow, but are already actively turning their heads.

The beginning of the phenological summer in the Central Chernozem region usually coincides with the flowering of pink clover, wild rose, the mysterious northern orchid - bileaf love, "dusting" of poplars, the flight of winged individuals in ants and, of course, the departure of chicks from the nest in most bird species. June is not without reason called the month of chicks. Most of our birds breed at this time.

Perhaps the first to leave their nest are crow chicks. I managed to observe how three days before this event, the crows actively climbed the branches of the pine tree on which the nest was located, returning to it at the slightest danger. Then they climbed up at once and settled on the branches about a meter from the nest. They did not return to it again, and on the fourth day they flew freely from tree to tree, gradually moving away from their parental home.

Then it was the turn of the thrushes. First, the song thrush and fieldfare chicks left the nests, and about a week later, the blackbird chicks. At this time, on forest paths and in park alleys, clumsy yellow-mouthed, short-tailed and short-winged fledglings often come across, who look trustingly at everyone who passes by, and calmly allow themselves to be taken in hand.

The chicks of starlings and nightingales do not sit in the nest. Leaving a cozy hollow or other shelter, they begin to stray into flocks. Beneath the trees, where the gangs of starlings gather, their ears can be blocked from their frantic cries. After two or three days, the starlings will leave their nesting sites and appear there only at the end of October, to say goodbye to their home before flying away.

Flocks of field and house sparrows can reach a number of several hundred individuals and roam the surrounding fields and thickets of weeds in search of food.

June is a hot time for woodpeckers. In their hollows, from three (in the white-backed) to eleven (in the gray-haired) chicks can crowd. A hollow in the forest is easy to spot because the chicks are very loud. Apparently, they are confident in their safety. But they just fly out of it and - silent.

A crackling is heard from the bushes - this is the magpies that have got out of their spherical nest. Now they still almost do not know how to fly and, on occasion, escape by deftly climbing bushes and tree branches. Adults, when their offspring are threatened, try to divert attention to themselves, often pretending to be lined.

In the most remote part of the forest, goshawk chicks are preparing to leave the nest. Even now, the stooped posture characteristic of the breed and the cold ruthless look of yellow eyes are visible in them. At first, they, like crow chicks, get out on the branches closest to the nest, but after a day they begin to try wings. True, for at least a month and a half, the family of these predators will stay in close proximity to the nest, and the hawks will become independent only in September, having learned from their parents all the subtleties of hawk hunting.

In the second half of June, from the dense thickets of the "mad cucumber" - this Don vine, densely braiding the trunks and crowns of trees in the floodplain forest - a thin sad whistle is heard, accompanied by a hoarse "cr... cr...". This is all that remains of the sonorous and varied song of the king of Russian singers - the nightingale. The pair I observed accompanied a litter of five fledglings. The nightingale brood will last at most a week, after which the birds will switch to a purely solitary lifestyle until next spring. Almost simultaneously with the nightingales, the chicks of their closest relatives leave the nests: the blue-breasted bluethroat, as well as the whitethroat and the hawk.

And on lakes, ponds and reservoirs - a real pandemonium. Gradually, like snow-white ocean liners, dazzlingly beautiful mute swans sway on the water, leading a brood of "ugly ducklings" for the first walk. Mallard cubs rise on the wing. A little later, the chicks of red-headed pochards and cracked teals will do this.

Grumpy coot neighbors throw themselves at each other with a cry, seeing a threat to their numerous (up to eleven chicks) brood in every passing bird. True, even two weeks will not pass, as peace will reign in the coot colony and the broods will begin to unite in huge flocks, sometimes reaching several thousand birds.

Like squadron destroyers, large grebes, or grebes, swim swiftly. These magnificent divers keep their chicks on their backs under their wings, distributing approximately equally between their parents. Sensing danger, they dive with the chicks.

And above the ideally smooth smooth surface of the Don oxbow lake, sparkling with a turquoise light, the kingfishers that have recently left their burrow are rapidly flying. They chase their parents with a cry, demanding to immediately give them a small fish tightly clamped in their beak.

On the steppe ponds at this time there are broods of large red ducks - shelducks. There are up to seventeen chicks in them, quickly rising to the wing. In case of danger, the entire brood instantly soars into the air with cries of "gong ... gong ...". This half-goose-half-duck nests in burrows, often using the dwellings of foxes and marmots.

With the onset of darkness, a thin plaintive squeak comes from the treetops. It is the fledglings of the long-eared owl who have recently left the nest begging for food from their parents. The fluffy company will last together until spring, uniting for the night with other similar broods from October.

Above the water, cutting the air with a low-level flight, swifts swiftly sweep by, and a whistle is heard from the thickets of coastal willows. These birds are still full of nesting worries. The time for their chicks has not yet come.

As a child, my mother always told me that with the onset of cold weather birds fly to warmer climes, and with the onset of spring they return to their native nests. And they do this in order to acquire offspring already on their territory. It is quite logical why little chicks need to survive the hungry and cold time. But all rules have their exceptions. There is one hero bird, which is exactly breeds in winter. I was also surprised at first when I found out, but it's true.

Which bird hatches chicks in winter

Bird, which is in no hurry to leave its habitat in winter time, but, on the contrary, even acquires offspring, has a name crossbill. This bird is not afraid of the cold. They are in the winter months easily incubate eggs And nurse chicks. The cross refers to family of finches. He is considered a relative of bullfinches and sparrows.

home distinguishing feature these birds - their beak. He has an unusual cruciform structure. Nature doesn't just mean it. It is thanks to this beak that they extract seeds from cones of pines and spruces. In nutrition, the crossbill prefers coniferous plants. Since the seeds of cones ripen in winter, these birds also breed chicks in winter. It is at this time that they have enough food to feed themselves.

How crossbills survive in the winter

The weather conditions during the winter months are not the best for the usual habitat of birds, and even more so for rearing chicks. How crossbill has adapted to the cold? The following factors help him successfully overwinter:

• the bird eats a lot, since in the cold it needs much more energy;
• nests only in places where there are no strong winds;
• Crossbills take care about your chicks paired with;
• well adapted to cold weather both adult birds and chicks.

This is how, with the joint efforts of a pair of these birds, they help the chicks to stand on their feet. I never cease to be amazed at how our world works. Even small birds are able to take care of their babies, just like people. Crossbill taking care of his chicks until they leave their nests. This takes about a month. But until the chicks become completely independent, another month will pass.

Interesting and informative quizzes for junior and middle school students. Quizzes on the topic "All about birds." All quiz questions with answers. Quizzes on the knowledge of bird species, on the knowledge of historical information about birds, on the biological characteristics of birds.

Quiz "All about birds"

■ Why is the woodpecker called the "helper" of other birds? (The woodpecker crushes the bark of trees and thus makes it easier for other birds to get food).

■ What forest bird makes a nest on the ground? Chiffchaff.

■ Who sleeps during the day, flies at night, scares passers-by? Owl, owl.

■ What birds live on the high seas for years, even sleeping on the waves, swaying like a float? (Albatrosses, frigates, phaetons).

■ Why did scientists justify the cuckoo despite the fact that foundling cuckoos throw other chicks out of the nest? (The cuckoo is the only bird that eats hairy (poisonous and the most voracious, destroying hectares of forest) caterpillars. No other bird touches these caterpillars.)

■ What birds were used in ancient Greece to send messages over long distances? (Pigeons. Pigeon mail exists in our time).

■ What is the main reason for the flight of birds to warmer climes with the advent of autumn? (Only because of the lack of food. Cold is not the reason for the flight. A hungry bird freezes, full - never.)

■ What birds come to us first in spring? (Rooks.)

■ Why do rooks “open” spring, and why do swallows arrive later than other birds? (Because of the way they feed. Rooks seek food in the soil, and swallows catch insects in flight. Insects in the air appear later, respectively, and swallows arrive later than other birds.)

■ Why are migratory birds in such a hurry in spring, but not in autumn? (Birds do not fly away in autumn as long as there is food.)

■ Which birds do not fly at all? (Ostriches, penguins.)

■ In which birds does the male incubate the eggs? (At ostriches.)

■ What bird's chick does not know its mother? (Cuckoo chick.)

■ What is the name of the large-headed grebe, on whose head the feathers stand upright? (A horned bird.)

■ Which birds have special nurseries? (At the penguins.)

■ Where do crows sleep in winter and autumn? (On trees in gardens and parks, gathering in small flocks.)

■ What is the name of a male crow? (A crow, and a raven is a completely different bird, although they are relatives.)

■ Who is resting while sitting on the wires? If it flies low to the ground, it will rain. (Martin.)

■ What is the name of the meeting of two roosters? (Cockfighting.)

■ What time does the sparrow wake up? (Last of all birds, but always at the same time at 5-6 o'clock in the morning.)

■ What is the name of a large bright bird with a long tail, which is partially domesticated? (Pheasant, peacock.)

Quiz "Wonder Birds"

■ Who is called the king of birds? (Eagle.)

■ What is the largest bird in the world? (Ostrich.)

■ What is the smallest bird? (Hummingbird.)

■ Which bird flies the fastest? (Swift.)

■ Which bird flies the highest? (Eagle.)

■ What is the smallest bird in our country? (King.)

■ What bird has a long tail? (Peacock, magpie.)

■ Which bird can fly tail first? (Hummingbird.)

■ Which bird in our forests is the best imitator of bird voices? (Starling.)

■ What bird is a symbol of beauty, purity and tenderness? (Swan.)

■ What bird is considered the mistress of the night forest? (Owl.)

■ What bird lives in a basket nest? (Oriole.)

■ Which yellow bird with a black tie builds a nest on sand and pebbles? (Plover.)

■ Which birds catch insects in flight? (Swallow, swift.)

■ Which birds are faithful to each other all their lives? (Swan geese.)

■ What birds are named for their beaks? (Dubonos, broadnosed, etc.)

■ Which birds hatch twice a summer? (Tits, pigeons.)

■ Which bird's nest looks like a floating island? (Chomgi.)

■ Where does the warbler build its nest? (In the grass, her nest looks like a hut.)

■ Which bird has the longest tongue? (At the woodpecker.)

■ What bird's beak looks like a hook? (Hawk.)

■ Which bird's beak is a real bag? (Pelican.)

■ Which bird's beak looks like a net? (Kozodoya.)

■ What instruments do wader noses look like? (On an awl and a sickle (awl and curlew-sickle).)

■ For some reason, this bird is called that, although it does not catch any turnips? (Repolov.)

Blitz quiz "From the life of birds"

■ Bird house. (Nest.)

■ Mass settlement of birds. (Market.)

■ Whistle for beckoning birds and animals. (Decoy.)

■ Hole in birdhouse and budgerigar house. (Tray.)

■ Bird hands. (Wings.)

■ Duck legs. (Paws.)

■ Forest doctor. (Woodpecker.)

■ Feathered heralds of spring. (Rooks.)

■ Child of any birds. (Chick.)

■ The mouth and nose of the bird. (Beak.)

■ Cackling mother hen. (Chicken, or klusha.)

■ A bird soaring over the ocean. (Albatross.)

■ American large multicolored parakeet talking. (Ara.)

■ Large-eared nocturnal bird of the order of owls. (Owl.)

■ Northern waterfowl. (Loon.)

■ A bird that looks like a swallow. (Swift.)

■ Forest chicken from the saying: "Deaf as ...". (Teterev.)

■ Is a penguin a bird? (Yes.)

■ For her love of shiny objects, she is called a thief. (Magpie.)