Every gardener welcomes a song thrush into his garden, because it readily devours so many snails. If you watch carefully you will see how this bird cracks open the shells on any steady stone it can find closeby. That stone is his ‘anvil’. The song of the thrush has rich warm tones. He often...
A little girl was walking with her grandmother through the open countryside. Her granny often told her stories about wonders of the natural world. Together they stopped to take a closer look at a birch. Amazed, the little girl asked, “Why does this tree have such beautiful white bark, Granny,...
A jay has not always been a beautiful, striking and noisy bird. Originally, it was a gentle, shy and unobtrusive bird which longed to be striking, clever and strong. However, through undertaking difficult adventures it earned its bright blue wing feathers, the white tail, black beak and tough...
Take a look sometime at a mosquito under a magnifying glass and enjoy the sight of an extraordinary and attractive insect with a long proboscis. Why are there small spatters of blood on the walls of so many bedroom? Why does nearly everybody loath this small insect? Listen to this story and...
Do you too enjoy the sight of those impressive solitary beech trees standing proud and aloof out in the countryside? A copper beech often adds colour to the oldest part of a graveyard. They are large strong trees. Have you ever noticed how beeches growing in a beech wood still keep a fair...
Nowadays maple seedlings spring up in our woods and parks. Conservationists are quick to label them ‘weeds’, because the young saplings rapidly overshadow other saplings and woodland plants. Maple is a hard wood with a silk-like sheen often used in making musical instruments and furniture. With...
The water lily is a magical beautiful flower. Did you know that the water lily was once a nymph who seduced many men? Nitella, the god of hair growth, was one of those who fell for her charms. Things did not turn out well for him, as you will hear in this tale: In times […]
You might think that the ring dove is saying ‘rooo cooo’. But if you listen carefully, then you will hear that he is saying something quite different. What exactly he is saying and why are told in this old story about Noah’s Ark. You will also find the answer to why the ring dove has […]
Have you ever taken a close look at a hare’s tail? Many people think the hare does not have a tail at all, but this is not so. The hare’s tail is simply short and thin, but in the past the hare sported a rather beautiful long bushy tail. By contrast the fox then only […]
When we think ‘bees’ we think ‘honey’. But did you realize that the hard-working bee is an essential element in producing a third of all the food we eat? These humming insects are really valued far less than they should be considering the work they do for us, because we often want more honey...
