It is not necessary to call the Estonian Rescue Board when you see a snake in the garden. You should give the reptile a chance to leave – it will do so quickly It is not necessary to call the Estonian Rescue Board when you see a snake in the garden. You should give the reptile a chance to leave – it will do so quickly. In the future, however, it is worth taking some measures to prevent snakes from...

Bats usually end up in residential buildings from late spring to autumn Bats often live close to humans in cities and towns. It is common for them to spend the days in the attics, but some species like cramped conditions, so they squeeze themselves through openings a few centimetres wide, either under lining boards or into some wooden cracks. It may happen that a bat flies into a room and can no...

Wild animals that have moved to the city can also cope without human help In cities, many wild animals have found a habitat next to humans – due to the easy availability of food and the lack of natural enemies. Fortunately, bears do not check out trash cans in Estonia (like they do in Canada, for example), but food waste does attract foxes and other smaller animals. When you see hedgehogs and...

By making the windows more visible to the birds you can prevent birds flying into them Birds do not realise that it is impossible to fly through glass windows. In the worst case, flying against the glass at full speed can be fatal to the bird. To prevent this from happening, it would be wise to mark large windows and glass surfaces for birds. More than a few of us have probably found a stunned or...

If you do not feed the birds, nothing bad will happen to them Should you feed birds during winter and if yes, how to do it properly? What should you feed the birds? First of all, keep in mind that if you do not feed the birds, nothing bad will happen to them. The birds that winter here have adapted to the Estonian climate and are able to cope on their own in the winter, while additional feeding...

What to do if bats settle in your house, snakes swarm under your compost pile, and an anthill starts to rise in the garden corner? Due to declining habitats and expanding human settlements, more and more wild animals are entering cities and villages. In addition, readily available food also attracts smaller wildlife to cities. Also in late summer and autumn, when young animals start to move around...

Nowadays, you can also get to know nature with the help of a smart device. With the help of smart applications and websites, nature lovers can supplement biodiversity databases Today, there are many Estonian-language nature-themed smart apps for both Android and iOS users. Some applications are helpful in identifying species, while others are tools for storing observations. Observation databases...

A new Atlas of the Estonian mammals is being prepared, which will provide an up-to-date overview of the distribution of all wild mammal species in Estonia WATCH the actively updated MAP STORY of the mammal atlas HERE. More than 20 years have passed since the previous compilation and collection of a comprehensive mammal distribution data set. Major changes in land use (suburbanisation, changes in...

What are nature observations campaigns? Although you can enter data into the nature observations database all year round, at the exact time you are actually in the wild, and observe the species that interest you most, there are sometimes targeted campaigns as well. Campaigns are designed to draw attention to a specific species or group of species, or to a region. For example, sometimes researchers...

Welcome to the introduction page of the nature observations database! We invite everyone to enter their nature observations (the first springtime common hepatica, the roe deer you saw, the nightingale you heard, etc.) in the nature observations database. This database has been created for all nature lovers who want to keep a so-called nature observations diary and share their observations with...