Birds of prey mari el. Red Book of Mari El Animal world Animal world
In autumn, when some birds leave Mari El for wintering in warm regions, others, on the contrary, fly to us. Candidate of Biological Sciences, Associate Professor Vladimir Korneev spoke about who and when will fly to our republic for the winter.
September October
At the beginning of autumn, birds are just beginning their migration to the south, and in September not many winged guests arrive to us.
Among them is a forest bird tap dance. It nests in the northern taiga, forest-tundra, and less often in the southern taiga. We have flocks, sometimes several dozen individuals, at the end of September-October, and stay all winter. They fly into towns and cities.
October November
By this time, most birds have already decided on their wintering place.
A bird with an interesting botanical name flies to us in mid-autumn - Lapland plantain. It nests in the tundras of the entire northern hemisphere. And they occasionally come to us for the winter from the tundras of the European part of Russia. Birds keep in flocks in fields and other open places.
In October-November we will also be visited by flocks snow bunting. These light-colored birds also nest in the tundras of the entire northern hemisphere. These birds, like plantains, live in flocks in fields and field roads.
Around the same time, everyone we know arrives bullfinches. They build nests in coniferous forests, mostly northern ones, but a small number of birds breed in our area. There are broods even in Yoshkar-Ola. You won’t see a large number of bullfinches here, but this bird is very noticeable and always attracts attention
November December
When snow falls and winter inexorably approaches, several more species of birds fly to Mari El.
At the end of autumn or beginning of winter, we are visited by a creature known to most waxwing. It nests in the middle and northern taiga of Eurasia and America. You can recognize waxwings by the size of their flocks - these small birds gather together in groups of several dozen or even hundreds of individuals. In winter they also appear here, but often they are only “flying”, and for the winter they go further, to more southern regions.
A rather rare bird also arrives during this period. schur, which in winter stays in small and unnoticeable flocks, unlike waxwings.
Rare guests
Some birds visit us only occasionally, and not every winter you will be able to meet them in the Mari forests.
So, from the Kirov region it flies to our republic in small flocks white partridge. The birds live mainly in forest moss swamps.
Sometimes a colorful bird flies from the tundra to Mari El polar or white owl. The owl usually winters further south, but occasionally appears here.
If the harvest of coniferous trees is good, then quite rare ones visit us. pine crossbill. It nests in the northern forests of Europe. This species is not numerous; in winter they live in small flocks.
The Republic of Mari El is one of the most environmentally friendly regions of Russia. The territory of the republic is located on the border of the steppe and forest-steppe zones. Fifty-seven percent of the territory is mixed forests. Thanks to the wonderful environmental conditions, a rich fauna has been preserved on the territory of Mari El.
The Mari region is a fabulous landscape, a haven of silence, a place with a rich flora, as well as a kingdom of animals and birds. The nature of the republic amazes with its splendor and richness.
With its landscapes, Mari El resembles the nature of the Alps. There are also many rivers, lakes and protected forests.
Flora of the Republic of Mari El
The local forests are famous throughout Russia; they are the largest forest area on the Volga River. Forests are the main wealth of the republic, as they contain large reserves of wood. Valuable coniferous species predominate on the territory of the republic. In the south there are pine forests, and in the north there are spruce and fir. In the forests you can find all kinds of mushrooms and berries, as well as medicinal plants.
The left bank of the Volga, Lesnoye Zavolzhye, is covered with continuous forest. Coniferous and mixed forests predominate here. There are about seventy species of tree and shrub species. In the river valleys there are oak and linden forests. The forests in the region have been deforested quite heavily, but reforestation work is constantly being carried out in the areas of deforestation. On the territory of the republic you can also find aspen, alder, maple, elm, rowan, bird cherry, rose hips, honeysuckle, juniper, viburnum and many other plants.
Fauna of the Republic of Mari El
Forests, meadows, rivers, lakes and swamps are home to many different animals. More than forty species of fish live in the reservoirs, such as perch, pike perch, bream and many others. The amphibian world is represented by ten species of inhabitants - frogs, newts, toads. Six species of reptiles - viper, snake, spindle, copperhead. Here you can find two hundred and eighty species of birds - woodpeckers, tits, owls, cranes, eagles, goldfinches, herons and many others.
The Republic of Mari El is rich in mammals; there are about sixty species here. Among them are such representatives as wolf, fox, brown bear, lynx, elk, and bat. An equally large number of rodents are found here, for example, hares, beavers, squirrels, and muskrats.
The most frequently encountered representative of the animal world here is the elk.
It is not for nothing that the coat of arms of Mari El is decorated with the image of a moose - they have long been found in abundance in the Mari forests. And today their number in the republic is about 4 thousand.
Climate in the Republic of Mari El
The Republic of Mari El has a temperate continental climate. Winters here are quite long and snowy, and summers are relatively hot. The territory of the region is under the influence of air masses of the Atlantic and Arctic.
In winter there are sharp drops in temperature, and in autumn and spring frosts are often observed.
The average annual air temperature in the east of the republic reaches two degrees Celsius above zero, and in the southwest up to three degrees.
The coldest month is January and the warmest month is July.
The warmest time of the year, when the temperature reaches above ten degrees Celsius above zero, lasts approximately one hundred and twenty-eight days on the territory of the republic.
Persistent frosts continue from the tenth of November to the twenty-fifth of March.
In winter there are often thaws.
The highest amount of precipitation occurs from April to October, when it is warm. During winter there is quite little precipitation.
The formation of snow cover occurs from the fifteenth to the twenty-fifth of November and this snow lies for about one hundred and fifty days.
Winds on the territory of Mari El are variable. Southern and southwestern winds predominate. Strong winds are typical in winter.
- Khristofor Fokeevich, in winter there are not so many birds left in our area - most of the species that we consider ours fly to warm countries. And what places do our feathered foreign tourists usually go to?
In different times, ducks, for example, spread over a vast territory from the British Isles to the Mediterranean, but not necessarily in Africa, as some people think. Although there was a case when one stupid drake flew into India. Blackbirds feel at home in Spain and Italy, wood pigeons have also settled in Portugal, although this is unsafe, because they are shot and eaten there.
- Is the desire to change places an invariable property of the species, genetically inherent in birds, or do they make the decision to migrate or not depending on some specific circumstances?
Indeed, there are some species of birds that can stay for the winter or fly away. It depends on the food supply, for example, many rowan thrushes, when there is a good rowan harvest, spend the winter here, and when the berries are not harvested, they fly away. Hunger is not a thing. Waxwings are just like gypsies, they roam as they please. One day in December, near Tsibiknur, a bird was caught, which a year ago at the same time was ringed near Prague. There are exceptions to the rule; one year, I remember, on Komsomolskaya Street, a family of rooks hibernated in a nest on an American maple tree, although in our conditions they definitely migrate.
- Let's talk about birds - patriots who, no matter how difficult it is, do not fly anywhere from Mari El.
More than 60 species live permanently in the republic, among them the well-known pigeons, jackdaws, hooded crows and black crows, tits, house sparrows and tree sparrows. Due to the large amount of warm sewage in the area of the city's wastewater treatment plants, ducks increasingly began to stay for the winter.
- As I understand, migration is not an easy process, if our birds fly to the south, then the Mari winters seem quite favorable to the northerners, and they spend the winter with us?
This is true - in particular, snowy owls, bee-eaters, and tundra buntings come to us; small flocks of them can be found in the fields. Previously, white partridges were frequent guests, but now they have been killed off.
- Have you ever wondered where the handsome bullfinches go in the summer?
They move to forests or to more northern regions.
- About wintering birds - what is worse for them - cold or hunger?
Birds die not from cold, but from hunger. The normal body temperature of birds is 41-42 degrees. In the absence of food, the body's defenses decrease and they begin to freeze. So even a healthy bird can die in winter. The most difficult time of the year is the winter period with very short daylight hours, that is, December-January.
- Which winters are the most dangerous?
The worst thing is when ice forms on the snow, a hard crust, this happens after freezing rain. As a result, many hazel grouse and black grouse, which spend the night in the snowdrifts, die. Although the crust is only half a centimeter thick, they can no longer get out of the snow captivity. Wood grouse are stronger and able to break through the crust. Winters with lots of snow are also harmful to birds - it is more difficult to obtain food.
- By the way, what do birds eat in winter?
The best food is the so-called berry apples - such trees with very small fruits grow quite a lot on the streets of Yoshkar-Ola, in addition, they eat the seeds of a number of shrubs: maple, lilac, spirea. Now, since many abandoned fields have appeared, the food supply of the birds has improved - after all, they happily feed on the seeds of weeds, such as burdock, motherwort, wormwood... Tap dancers love birch catkins and buds, the diet of crossbills consists of seeds of coniferous trees.
- Has global warming, which is talked about so much, somehow affected birds?
There was no noticeable change in the species composition of birds, but overall conditions for nesting improved.
- Which birds are the most numerous in our republic?
I once carried out such a count; there are special counting methods, and I found out that about 70 thousand crows and jackdaws spent the night in the park near the republican hospital alone. Taking into account the entire republic, sparrows and jackdaws probably come in first place. But among migratory birds, the numbers vary greatly. Previously, there were many starlings, but in the countries where they fly to winter (Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania), they are mercilessly destroyed, because they cause enormous damage to vineyards by pecking at berries. Apparently, due to this, the population sharply declined, but the waxwings multiplied.
- Well, which species are the rarest?
In our republic, in my opinion, these are the whooper swan, the golden eagle, the black stork, and among the small ones, the Dubrovnik bunting has become very rare.
- How often do we see birds of prey in our republic?
All of them are quite rare. In total, about 25 species of birds of prey of the hawk, falcon and osprey families nest in Mari El. Many, for example, the peregrine falcon, short-eared eagle, imperial eagle, white-tailed eagle, golden eagle, osprey, gyrfalcon, are listed in the Red Book and are under state protection. There are nocturnal predators, these are owls. Accipiters are represented in Mari El by honey buzzards, black kites, golden eagles, goshawks, imperial hawks, buzzards, and white-tailed eagles. The latter are fans of fishing themselves and picking up small items thrown by fish. The main food for falcons are small birds, which they catch in flight. Goshawks and sparrowhawks often fly into the city in winter and hunt birds there, lying in wait for them near the feeders.
- It seems to me that birds are increasingly considering populated areas as their territory; obviously, it is easier for them to survive and feed themselves here?
This is especially noticeable during unfavorable winters. When there is a lot of snow, owls move closer to cities: the long-tailed owl and the gray owl. Due to the deep snow cover, they cannot, as usual, hunt for mice in nature and hunt in cities: jackdaws, pigeons, and rodents. Some species, scientists call them synanthropic, have generally adapted to life near humans, primarily pigeons and rooks, but this is a topic for another discussion.
- How can a person help birds in winter?
It's a simple matter - feed it. We have a lot of responsive people - look at how many feeders are on display in the Pine Grove. I myself constantly feed the birds, the pigeons recognize me and fearlessly sit on my shoulders and head. A couple of practical tips - feeders should be placed under trees, preferably under spruce trees so that it doesn't get snowed in. And they also need to be done wisely, so that the food goes not to impudent jackdaws, but to small birds; the hole in the feeder should be small. The best food options are sunflower seeds and hemp seeds, although they are now difficult to find; cereals will also work, just not the smallest ones. Tits and nuthatches really like unsalted lard.
- And what explains the harsh attitude of a person towards a gray crow, as far as I know, a real crusade has been declared against it?
Hooded crows cause much more harm to nature than even wolves. These are intelligent, ruthless and insatiable predators that destroy eggs, chicks, and young small animals. True, for the sake of objectivity, I must say that they do have one good deed to their credit - in the spring, when mouse holes are flooded with water, they destroy mice and voles in large numbers.
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Shellfish
In total, there are about 90 thousand species of gastropods; in Mari El there are only 69 of them. All of them have adapted to different lifestyles and nutritional patterns. Some filter food from organic suspensions of water, others feed on detritus - organic matter consisting of decay products of living organisms and plants, and for predatory forms the main prey is bivalves.
Representatives of the prosobranch subclass live in water. They are found in our forest lakes: Yalchik, Konanier, Mushender, Glukhoy, Okunev and others.
The family of pond snails, the most common pulmonary snails in our reservoirs, is represented in the republic by a much larger number of species. Of these, the most famous is the common pond snail. From early spring to autumn, you can observe these snails crawling in the coastal strip of lakes such as Glukhoe, Konanier, Martyn, Sharskoye and others. There are especially many of them in the middle of summer in thickets of water lilies, water lilies and hornwort.
Bivalve mollusks also live in our reservoirs: barley and toothless mollusks. Their characteristic feature is the presence of a bivalve shell and lamellar gills.
In the lakes Marier, Yalchik, Tsurkan, Lisiem and others live the wedge-shaped, thick and ordinary pearl barley, whose shell is stronger and more flattened laterally than that of the toothless barley, which also belongs to the family of pearl barley. Their shell is thin-walled, fragile, with a rather weak mother-of-pearl layer and without locking cavities.
In the Mari Republic, three types of toothless are known: ordinary, narrow and fish. The first is found everywhere where there is no fast current, and the narrow toothless is found only in two lakes - Marier and Mushender. The toothless fish is very common in our rivers and lakes. There is especially a lot of it on Lake Kichier.
Insects
In Russia, silkworm breeding first began in 1596 in the village of Izmailovo, near Moscow. Currently, it is widespread in our country. Even in the Republic of Mari El, where, it would seem, the conditions are not very suitable, where it is too cold for such heat-loving creatures, they began to engage in sericulture.
The first industrial feeding of oak silkworms in our country began on collective farms in the Krasnodar Territory in 1937. And in 1941, some collective farms of the Mari Republic began sericulture.
There are about two thousand species in the mosquito family, but the most common are the squeak and malaria mosquitoes. The squeaker is very common in our region, and it haunts us at every step in the summer. The malaria mosquito is very rare in the Mari Republic.
Our republic is included in the zone of increased numbers of beetles - wireworms. Their number under various agricultural crops reaches from 18 to 44 copies per square meter. Among them, click beetles are especially numerous: sowing, striped, dark, shiny, wide, red-tailed. According to experts, crop yield losses from wireworms amount to up to 38 percent.
Among the insects of the Republic of Mari El, although they have been studied relatively little, there are species listed in the Red Book of Russia. These are from the beetles: the fragrant beetle, the hermit, the alpine longhorned beetle, the moss bumblebee, the Shrenka bumblebee, the sporadicus bumblebee, the Baikal bumblebee, the steppe bumblebee, the lesus bumblebee, the carpenter bee, and from butterflies: the peacock's eye, the death's head hawk moth, the oleander hawk moth, hera bear, lady bear, crimson order ribbon, blue order ribbon, saddle owl, swallowtail, podalirium, apollo, mnemosyne, polyxena, gero sennitsa, great quail.
Fish
The Republic of Mari El is located in the middle reaches of the great Russian river Volga. Many large rivers of the republic, such as Vetluga, Rutka, Bolshaya and Malaya Kokshaga, Ilet, Sura, Bolshoy Sundyr and others, flow into the Volga. It is through them that fish penetrate into all the reservoirs of the region. In the Volga, according to experts, there are 69 species of fish, and in our republic there are 42 species, 38 of which are permanent residents.
More than half of the total number of species are fish of the carp family. These include bream, carp, crucian carp, ide, gudgeon, tench, sabrefish, rudd, roach, bleak and others. In second place in number is the perch family, represented by 4 species: pike perch, perch, ruff, and bersh. Of the catfish, pike, and cod families, we have only one species each: catfish, pike, and burbot.
In the past, before the construction of the Cheboksary hydroelectric power station, many fish, especially sturgeon, which included such valuable species as sterlet, beluga, sturgeon, as well as cyprinids, rose annually in the spring from the Caspian Sea to the upper reaches of the Volga to spawn. Now a dam has blocked their path, and the fish can no longer reach our region. Therefore, many species are found less and less often in our country, and white fish and herring have disappeared altogether.
The species composition of fish inhabiting individual reservoirs of the republic is far from the same. The larger the body of water, the richer it is in fish. The greatest diversity is observed in Lake Yalchik, where 12 species of fish are found. In small lakes the species composition is very poor. Among them there are completely isolated reservoirs, such as lakes Glukhoe and Kuzhuer, in which you can only catch perch, pike and crucian carp.
Amphibians
The Mari Republic is home to 11 species of amphibians: three species of newts, two species of toads, four frogs, the common spadefoot and the red-bellied toad.
Birds
In our fauna, chickens are represented by the pheasant family, which includes quail, gray partridge, pheasant and the grouse family, of which four species live in the Mari Republic: partridge, black grouse, wood grouse and hazel grouse.
Predator birds
In the Mari Republic there are 25 species of diurnal birds of prey from three families: hawks, ospreys and falcons. Some of them - osprey, golden eagle, imperial eagle, white-tailed eagle, short-eared eagle, gyrfalcon, peregrine falcon - have become so rare that they have become extinct. In many countries, including ours, they are protected and listed in the Red Book.
The osprey family is represented by only one species - the osprey, which feeds mainly on fish. That is why it can be found on the Volga, Vetluga, near lakes Lugovoe, Maryer, and the Nolka and Tolman fish farms. Its plumage is grayish-brown with streaks, and there are black stripes on the sides of its head. While hunting for fish, the bird flies slowly over the water, and sometimes, fluttering its wings, hovers in the air, looking for prey.
Of the hawk family, 18 species live in our region: the buzzard, the black kite, the goshawk, the golden eagle, the imperial eagle, the short-tailed snake eagle, the white-tailed eagle, the buzzard or buzzard, the field harrier and others. The largest bird, the golden eagle, has become very rare among them. In the Republic of Mari El, it nests in the territory of the Iletsky forestry and the former Mari State Reserve. The plumage of the golden eagle is dark brown, sometimes in reddish and dark gray tones. The legs are covered with feathers up to the toes. He hunts hares, wood grouse, ducks, and feeds on carrion.
But the birds from the falcon family are medium in size, their wings are long, pointed, and their tails are narrow. Their flight is rapid with frequent flapping of their wings. They feed mainly on freshly hunted animals and only in rare cases on carrion. Of the falcons, we have the real falcon or peregrine falcon, gyrfalcon, saker falcon, hobby hobby, merlin, kestrel and falcon. The food of the peregrine falcon and the gyrfalcon, included in the Red Book, are exclusively small birds, which they catch in flight. True, in Rus' falcons were also trained to catch hares and foxes.
Animals Mari El
The fauna of the Mari El Republic is quite rich and diverse. But this is also one of the traditional sources of human existence since ancient times. And although now it is losing its meaning, it still exists. For example, in 1993 alone, wild ungulate meat worth 33 million rubles was sold in the republic.
It should be noted that the reduction in forest area, pollution of water bodies, and excessive hunting have led to the disappearance of certain animal species and a decrease in the number of squirrels, hares, ermine, marten, otter, and badger. Due to human fault, over the past hundred years, reindeer, whooper swan, and gray goose have completely disappeared from our region.
At the end of the 19th century, the muskrat was widespread in the Mari region. Because of the great value of the furs of these animals, thousands were caught. In 1913, more than 60 thousand muskrat skins were sold at the Nizhny Novgorod fair alone. But in the 1920s there were forest fires across the republic, rivers—the muskrat’s favorite habitats—shallowed, and hunting was too irrational, and as a result, the muskrat disappeared from our country. In 1963, an attempt was made to acclimatize these animals on Malaya Kokshaga, where 173 muskrats were released, but they did not take root.
Even now, not all is well with the protection of animals in the republic, although the state spends a lot of money on this. In 1993, for example, the government allocated about 50 million rubles for the protection, reproduction of wild animals and maintenance of the ranger service. but the number of violations of animal protection rules during this period did not decrease and amounted to 313 cases. Fines amounting to about two million rubles were imposed on poachers.
Recently, both the government and conservation enthusiasts have been making a lot of efforts to acclimatize fur-bearing animals, organize nature reserves and wildlife sanctuaries, and create fur farms. In 1993, the state reserve “Bolshaya Kokshaga” was created in one of the picturesque places of the Kilemar region, where hunting and fishing of wild animals is completely prohibited, where all animals live freely, but under the protection of the reserve’s employees. To enrich the fauna with valuable fur-bearing animals in the Gornomariysky region, in 1993, 50 bobak, the European marmot, were released.