Crystal messengers from heaven. A method of measuring temperature and a device for its implementation Are errors in identifying birds in the book possible?

Birds in the frame

Photo Hunter Notes

Timofey Cherepanov

ISBN 978-5-4485-9087-0

Acknowledgments

People to whom I am indebted:

Olga Viktorovna Voltsit - employee of the Zoological Museum of Moscow, Ph.D., who kindly agreed to look through the book for the correct identification of the species and names of birds and said warm parting words.

Polina Likhacheva (Ryazan), who at one time created the "Birds" club on Ya.ru and infected many with her love for all creatures on earth, including the author.

Introduction

The gods gave us birds so that we can see every day what beauty is. But we rarely look to the sky and forget about beauty and freedom.

Confucius

I began to follow the life of birds with pleasure, and in my simplicity I wondered how every gentleman does not become an ornithologist

Charles Darwin

“Well, this author is impudent,” the reader will think, “didn't he borrow the subtitle from Turgenev?” No, Turgenev wrote about people, and this book is about birds, but through the eyes of a photographer. There is just no special word for this kind of occupation in the Russian language yet. In the last two decades, word formation in our country has big problems in general. Public consciousness does not keep pace with the rapid changes in all spheres, therefore, along with things and concepts, tracing words borrowed from other languages, mainly from English, come into our life. This has happened more than once in history. So we say "shopping", "kiting", "monitoring", "rafting", "banking", etc. The closest word for what the book is about is "birdwatching", the same tracing paper from English - Bird-watching, bird watching. "Birdwatcher" or "burder" - birdwatcher, amateur ornithologist. Although both are not entirely accurate: both are not necessarily photographers. I will use the word "birdwatcher" in the book, but I still consider it premature in the title - the book is not for specialists or those very "birdwatchers", and the interpretation of this word in Russian has not yet settled down. Some refer to birdwatchers only as athletes who compete in who will see more birds in a certain period (for acquaintance with this I recommend the kind and funny film “Big Year” directed by David Frankel), while others - all observers. It is clear that the overwhelming majority are qualifiers. A lot of bird guides have been published, both in paper form and in electronic form. If before the only opportunity to illustrate them were drawings, in recent years a lot has been published with illustrations in the form of photographs of birds in a real habitat. As an example, it is enough to mention the luxurious three-volume "Complete Guide to Birds of the European Part of Russia", prepared by the country's leading ornithologists under the general editorship of db. n. M.V. Kalyakina (publishing house "Fiton XXI", 2013).

However, what is a determinant? To some extent, it is like a dictionary. The thing is as necessary as it is boring. Paradoxical as it may sound, but in those days when one could only dream of photographing birds in wildlife, more masters of literature wrote about birds. When they combined the talent of a writer with the knowledge of an ornithologist, such hitherto unsurpassed masterpieces such as, for example, the works of A. Brem, were born. After all, Kozma Prutkov joked that a specialist is like a gumboil, its completeness is one-sided. Sometimes one aptly noticed detail in the appearance or behavior of a bird will say more than a full description in the qualifier. When I once heard the bleating of a lamb in the sky, Bianchi's book "Who sings with what?", Read in childhood, instantly came to my mind. Yes, it's a snipe! By the way, I never saw him close, but I think that the meeting with the snipe did take place (birdwatchers also think so, if you believe what was said in the movie "The Big Year"). The same thing happened when I heard from the bushes: "Did you see Vitya?" The words convey the song of the bird only by consonance, but I clearly heard: che-che-shit! Many names reflect precisely the sounds of birds, if not in Russian, then in others. Latin name for hoopoe Upupa epops very accurately conveys the sounds made by this bird: "Oo-oo-oo!". The cuckoo is not only in Russian. And there are many such examples. This applies not only to the voice, but also to other characteristic features in the appearance or behavior of the bird: a noticeable color of plumage, movements or typical habitats. The people did not call anything and no one just like that, therefore, only a bird with an awl-shaped beak can be called an awl, the warbler should live in reeds or among other grasses with tall stems, for example, nettle, and the Roller should have gray and black plumage. The chat mumbles, the laugh laughs ...

Many books on birds have been published. Once I acquired and re-read the excellent book by G. N. Simkin "Songbirds" (M., "Forest Industry", 1990). If only the printing quality of the photos corresponded to the content! Perhaps, the first book in acquaintance with birds for me was "School Atlas-Keys to Birds" by VM Khrabry. Having already started working on this one, I discovered entire libraries of publications from different years, for example, http://zoomet.ru/metod_ptica.html. I cannot fail to note with great heart the book written by SP Paskhalny "The North, Birds, People". - Yekaterinburg: From the Ural University, 2004. Ural writer Nikolai Nikonov - the book is also called "Songbirds" (Sverdlovsk, Middle Ural Book Publishing House, 1973).

On the other hand, now almost everyone has a camera in one form or another - they are even built into mobile phones. Everybody is shooting everything. True, you can't take pictures of a bird in nature with an ordinary mobile phone, but there are now a lot of photographers with expensive special equipment. Many have managed to collect wonderful collections that can only be envied. But what is their fate? Only a few manage to see their works in printed form - in identifiers or, if they're really lucky, at an exhibition. The overwhelming majority of photographs are posted on the Internet and dissolve in this infinity. Comprehensive information can be found for each bird. There is little to do: to know what kind of bird it is ... This problem is common, whether we are talking about birds, plants, mushrooms, or even minerals or stars. A beginner who is not familiar with the taxonomy in this area will leaf through the qualifiers for a long time in the hope of finding what he has seen. But if a mushroom or, suppose, a plant is still in the hands, then the bird seen has long since flown away, remaining only in memories. And how fragile they are is known to everyone who has dealt with the so-called eyewitnesses or witnesses. In my circle of acquaintances, thanks to my hobby, I gained a reputation as an “birdwatcher” (which I am not at all), and I am often asked with the following question: “A bird flies to our site. Looks like a sparrow, but not a sparrow. The breast is red (blue, green ...), the ponytail is long ... Tell me, who is it? " It is clear that even a real ornithologist does not recognize a bird from such a description, so I give the questioner the most complete identifier and suggest looking for it yourself. After a while, the qualifier is put aside with the words "this bird is not here." Hurray, another discovery has been made in science: a new species has been discovered!

Union of Soviet

Socialist

Republics

State Committee

AG for Inventions and Discoveries (53) UDC 536.53 (088. S), U 2) Authors

V. N. Zolkin, IO.A. Komarov, V.P. and T.Ya. Cherepanov (71) Applicant (54) METHOD OF TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENT AND DEVICE

FOR ITS IMPLEMENTATION

The invention relates to thermometry and is intended mainly for remote measurement of the temperature of an object in conditions under conditions of strong electromagnetic fields, for example, hard-to-reach areas of power transformers, electric motors and other electrical machines.

There is a known method of remote temperature measurement based on a change in the color measured by objects), however, the accuracy of temperature measurement in this way is not high.

The closest in technical essence and the achieved result to the invention is a method for measuring temperature, which consists in placing a semiconductor thermosensitive element in the investigated region-2 () ty, illuminating it with monochromatic radiation with a wavelength located in the region of the temperature shift of the semiconductor absorption band edge. The method is based on the shift of the semiconductor absorption band edge depending on temperature.

The method is implemented by a device containing a light source with a power supply unit, a light guide, a temperature-sensitive element in the form of a semiconductor plate, which is attached to the end of the light guide on one side, and a reflector in the form of a mirror or a prism, a fato receiver and a recorder is mounted on the other side. ... The emission spectrum of a monochromatic light source, such as an LED, is located in close proximity to the edge of the absorption band of the semiconductor. When the temperature changes, the absorption coefficient changes at the wavelength of the light source, therefore, the signal amplitude at the output of the photodetector 2).

However, both this method and the device for era implementation have significant drawbacks. Since the temperature value is judged by the change in the intensity of the light flux, and the magnitude of this intensity is influenced not only by the spectral shift of the element, the accuracy during long-term operation turns out to be insufficient, since the calibration is possible only once during the installation of the sensor and the entire drift after 800705 is entirely included in the measurement error.

The purpose of the invention is to improve the accuracy of temperature measurement.

This goal is achieved by the fact that the semiconductor thermosensitive element is additionally illuminated with monochromatic radiation with

) with a whole wave lying in the region of the transparency window of the semiconductor, and the value of the temperature is judged by the ratio of the intensities of the light fluxes passing through the semiconductor.

On fi.-. 1 shows the spectral characteristic of the absorption coefficient c versus length. the waves

g (the solid curve corresponds to a certain value of the temperature T, the dashed line - T> T,); in FIG. 2 - block diagram of a device for implementing the proposed method.

The luminous flux passing through the W thermosensitive element and the information transmission path and having a radiation wavelength A corresponding to the edge of the semiconductor absorption band is proportional to the product R

f, (T). F, (t, x „), where f, (T) is the light transmission of the semiconductor itself as a function of temperature, F, (t, x) is the light transmission of the information transmission path as“, the function of time and various Z, 1 interference, instabilities etc. The ionochromatic luminous flux passing along the same path, but having a wavelength A. "lying within the transparency window of the semiconductor, is proportional to the product f" (T) F> (t, x;), 0 where functions fu F are similar in physical meaning f, and F. Since the light transmission of the semiconductor itself at wavelength A. is practically independent of temperature, f (T) = const. 40

The radiation wavelength A is chosen in close proximity to the edge of the absorption band, so that the difference between A and A is small and the interference function

F, practically the brilliance coincides with P ", i.e.

F, (t, x) = F> (t, xL). The ratio of luminous fluxes with wavelengths A, and

A "proportionally, follow; but only f, (T), i.e. gives undistorted temperature information. 50

In practice, to find the ratio of the intensities of light fluxes, it is advisable to first convert each set flux into a proportional electrical signal and then determine the value of the ratio.

The difference between a device that implements the proposed method is that a second light source is introduced into it, a time selector, the information input of which is connected through an amplifier 69 to the output of the Photodetector, and a relationship diagram connected to a recorder, to two inputs of which are connected through integrators outputs of the time selector connected by two 45 control inputs to the power supply of the light sources.

The power unit contains a master oscillator made in the form of a multivibrator, one output of which is connected to the first light source and to one of the control inputs of the time selector, and the second output is connected to the second light source and the second control input of the time selector.

The device contains light sources 1 and 2 with a common power supply 3, two optical fibers 4 and B, a temperature-sensitive element b, a reflector

7, photodetector 8, amplifier 9, time selector 10, integrators 11. and 12, relationship diagram 13 and recorder 14.

The pulse generator generates pulses in such a way that each odd (conditionally) pulse is generated at the output 1 and excites the source of monochromatic light 1 with the radiation wavelength A,. Each even pulse arrives at output 2 and excites a monochromatic light source 2 (reference) with a radiation wavelength (. The same pulses from the generator outputs (out. 1 and out 2) are fed to the control inputs of the time selector 10 and open the corresponding outputs in this way that at the moment of illumination of the light source 1, the output to the integrator ll opens, and at the moment of the illumination of the light source 2, the output to the integrator 12 opens. 1 and 2. The ratio of such signals gives undistorted information about the temperature, therefore the outputs of the integrators are connected to the inputs of the ratio circuit 13, the output of which is connected directly to the recorder 14.

The output of the integrator 12, which receives pulses proportional to the luminous flux hitting the photodetector 8 from the reference light source 2, can be connected to the input

AGC amplifier 9 (the connection is shown in Fig. 2 with a dashed line). In this case, the signal at the output of the integrator 12 will be maintained at a constant level and the relationship circuit 13 can be made simply in the form of a matching stage.

Thus, the exclusion from the measurement results of errors associated with the presence of noise and instabilities in the information transmission path leads to an increase in the measurement accuracy.

Formula of invention z 10401/51 odnisny

l. A method for measuring temperature, which consists in placing a semiconductor thermosensitive element in the investigated region, illuminating it with monochromatic radiation with a wavelength located in the region of the temperature shift of the edge of the absorption band of a semiconductor, characterized in that, in order to increase the measurement accuracy, the semiconductor thermosensitive element additionally illuminated with monochromatic radiation with a wavelength lying in the region of the transparency window of the semiconductor, and the value of the temperature is judged by the ratio of the intensities of the light fluxes passing through the semiconductor °

2. A device for implementing the method according to and. 1, containing a light source 20 with a power supply, a light guide, a thermosensitive element in the form of a semiconductor plate, which is attached on one side to the end of the light guide, and on the other side of it, a reflector in the form of a mirror or a prism, a photodetector and a recorder are it introduces a second light source, a time selector, the information input of which is connected through an amplifier to the output of the photos, the receiver, and a relationship diagram connected to the recorder, to the two inputs of which the outputs of the time selector are connected through the integrators, connected by two control inputs to the power supply of the light sources.

A device according to claim 2, characterized by the fact that the power supply contains a master oscillator made in the form of a multivibrator, one output of which is connected to the first light source and to one of the control inputs of the time selector , and the second output is connected to the second light source and the second control input of the time selector.

ISBN 978-5-4485-9087-0

Acknowledgments

People to whom I am indebted:

Polina Likhacheva (Ryazan), who at one time created the "Birds" club on Ya.ru and infected many with her love for all creatures on earth, including the author.

Introduction

The gods gave us birds so that we can see every day what beauty is. But we rarely look to the sky and forget about beauty and freedom.

Confucius

I began to follow the life of birds with pleasure, and in my simplicity I wondered how every gentleman does not become an ornithologist

Charles Darwin

Of course, this is just a joke, but in every joke, as you know, there is only a fraction of a joke. The degree to which the modern inhabitant of the metropolis does not know the world around him, including birds, is simply amazing. Communication with wildlife is being replaced by devices with the nasty name "gadgets" (another not the best borrowing). Hearing a nightingale singing in the nearby bushes, someone will close the window, because the nightingale interferes with watching another bloody thriller. To a child who has not yet lost the inherent curiosity of all living things and saw a siskin in the park, the mother, when asked "what kind of bird is this?" most likely he will answer: "Titmouse." This is not a fictional scene at all - I saw it more than once in Tsaritsyno Park. When on vacation in Crimea I showed the photographs of birds taken there, I usually met the bewildered:

- Where do these birds live?

- Yes, they live here, side by side.

- Can not be! You have to write a book!

Here, I am writing ...

I am writing because I see such a need. Although I do not consider myself either an ornithologist, or an outstanding animal photographer, or, moreover, a master of fine literature. I grew up in a taiga Ural village - without a TV or other "gadgets". There, as they say, you cannot hide from nature: it is all around. But even there I knew birds very poorly. Crows, magpies, blackbirds (without distinction by species), tits - the same thing. Sparrows - without knowing that they are field. Swallows - village and coastal. A kite who is actually a buzzard. Jay, which is called the ridge in that area. Woodpeckers are also just woodpeckers, except that they stood out from among them. Boar game - hazel grouse, black grouse, wood grouse, which he himself even hunted as a schoolboy. Then, already in city life, at night they often dreamed either of a capercaillie walking on an old "side" pine tree against the background of dawn, or a black grouse with a lyre-tail, or a hazel grouse - a cockerel with a black tie. And I remembered the misses when the bird flew away. Then, over time, this regret was replaced by joy for the beauty that remained in nature.

But what concerned, according to the winged expression of Ilf and Petrov, “the petty bird bastard,” singing in the nearby bushes, all knowledge was limited only to the fact that she exists. I began to distinguish between its representatives only by taking up photography, at the same time amazed at my own ignorance of the richness of the avifauna even in the immediate surroundings of the dacha. The ancient sages said that the unnamed does not exist. Where people have not yet lost touch with their ancestor - nature, there are no soulless "heights 220". Each hillock, stream, and noticeable tree has its own name. What, then, can we say about birds? Many have not even one, but several names that reveal one or another side of her appearance, behavior, voice, habitat. But the modern city dweller is already deprived of this. I would not like it to be irrevocable. That is why I am writing.

There are two ways to classify birds. One, generally accepted, is systematic, according to orders, families, genera and species. This is how all determinants are constructed. As I have already noted, in order to use them, you need at least in general terms to have an idea of this classification, and this is not available to a beginner. For a beginner, another method is more convenient, called zoogeographic. According to this principle, for example, the book by Jiri Felix "Birds of gardens, parks and fields" - from "Artija", Prague, 1980, a wonderful book by A.S. Malchevsky "Ornithological excursions" is written by Jiri Felix - a real guide for birdwatchers! This is when animals are described by habitat. After all, they do not live where they have to, because they are closely related to a certain environment. I really want, if possible, not to use special terms in the book that frighten off an inexperienced reader, but I still can't do without something. However, if I now give the definition of this word from a dictionary or textbook, then it will contain other, even less understandable terms that will also have to be explained. Therefore, I will say quite at the everyday level: a biotope or biocomplex is the environment in which certain living organisms live. In old Russian-language books, you can find another word - station. After all, everyone knows that nightingales sing in the bushes, most often near the water, most waders live in lakes and swamps, an eagle owl lives in a deep forest, and a warbler, judging by the name, lives somewhere in the reeds. Even those who have never seen the warbler even in their eyes guess, and if they did, they did not suspect that it was she.

Of course, such a classification is not, and indeed cannot be, perfect, because birds, no matter how banal it sounds, fly and also migrate depending on the presence or absence of a food base, nesting and other reasons. In the book of the remarkable Russian writer Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov, "Notes of a rifle hunter of the Orenburg province," it is said about this: their correct division into categories; some of the same breeds sometimes live in the steppe and fields, sometimes in the forest, sometimes in a swamp. ... So, we must leave. claims to perfect accuracy: it is enough if the distribution is made approximately correctly and on some positive basis. " In addition, it seems to me more correct not to divide birds of the same family or genus into different parts of the book. So, biologically close white and black storks are completely different in their habitats. If the first one nests literally on the roofs of houses, then the second one - in the most remote areas of the forest. A hooded crow calmly rummages in a garbage can in front of people, a magpie does it too, but not in front of their eyes, and a related jay or nutcracker can be found in a village only in a hungry year, and in a big city - only in a park. The raven generally prefers not to be seen. So when writing the book, I approached this issue "dialectically", proceeding primarily from the convenience for the reader. At the end there are pointers to Russian and Latin names of birds.

Any book can be ruined by a long preface, so I'm going to the main part. All that remains is to answer a few unasked questions.

Can this book be used as a guide?

To some extent, yes, because photography provides the most information about a bird. I will try to add something in words - naturally, taking into account my experience in recognition. Well, the reader will find what is missing already in a professionally compiled identifier.

Is the species composition of birds complete at least for some area?

Of course not: one author simply cannot do it. In the aforementioned book by Aksakov, there are the following lines: "To find many species of game, one must travel too far, one must expose oneself to many hardships and many hard toil." This is fully, if not even more, true in relation to photography, because the cost of the so-called "photo tours" is much higher than the cost of ordinary, mass tourism, which not everyone can afford and not everyone has time for this. And the conditions there, as a rule, are far from so beloved by adherents of the all inclusive beach holiday, so photography, like any other hunt, is the lot of fans, which is brilliantly played in the already mentioned film "Big Year". The author's task is different: to show that it is right next to the reader that many amazing creatures live, which he may not even guess about, to awaken interest in them. Now even psychologists are preoccupied with almost universal "withdrawal into the virtual space" and ways to get people out of there into the real world. Interest will appear, the person will find the necessary information on his own, as happened with the author. It is important to take only the first steps, and they are the ones that most often disappoint beginners.

Are there any mistakes in identifying birds in the book?

The author will make every effort to prevent this from happening. The manuscript will be checked by bird watchers before publication. And here again I can’t help but quote again the words of Aksakov (by the way - my fellow countryman), although they are dedicated to rifle hunting, but so consonant with my soul and quite applicable to hunting not with a gun, but with a camera: “My book not a treatise on gun hunting, not a natural history of all kinds of game. My book is no less than simple notes of a passionate hunter and observer: sometimes quite detailed and complete, sometimes superficial and one-sided, but always conscientious. There are a lot of gun hunters in Russia (there are hardly fewer photo hunters now - author's note), and I have no doubt in their sympathy. Scientists naturalists can safely rely on my words: I never pass off probable assumptions as facts and what I have not seen with my own eyes, I do not assert.

Where are the bird pictures taken?

Most of the pictures were taken in the Moscow region and in Moscow itself, as well as in the eastern part of Crimea. A small part - in the Republic of Bashkortostan, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and in some other regions where I happened to be. In the caption, when it is essential, I will indicate the location of the shooting.

By the standards of photoanimalists - quite budget. Canon EOS 40D and 70D cameras, lens - Sigma AF 150-500 mm F / 5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM. At first, the author used a Canon EF-S 55-250 mm F / 4-5.6 IS lens, but its focal length for shooting birds in the field is clearly not enough.

Does the book use photographs taken by other authors?

Hardly ever. All photos in the book were taken by the author, with the exception of two, kindly donated by neighbors in the country.

So, we started ...

Chapter I. Birds near the house

This chapter will focus mainly on birds that long ago left their natural habitat and adapted to live next to humans or in a landscape created by humans. Many of them can no longer exist in other conditions. Such birds are called synanthropic. Here I also included species that generally do not need closeness to humans, but which are most likely to be encountered in a settlement. Such are, for example, waxwings, whose flocks feed on the berries of mountain ash, hawthorn and other shrubs, even in Moscow.

Sparrows

Perhaps there is no other bird so attached to human habitation. This, as bird watchers say, is the background bird of settlements. They do not fly anywhere, they endure our cold winters, however, only about a tenth of them survive until spring. Birds have an intensive metabolism and small birds often need to peck something, otherwise they will die. The sparrow is the first guest at the feeder.

Not everyone knows that sparrows are different even in central Russia. Some are called so brownies(Passer domesticus), while others - field (Passer montanus)... At first glance, they are very similar, however, among birds there are often very similar in appearance, but belonging to different species. Some can generally be reliably identified only by picking them up. However, this does not apply to sparrows: the one who knows will identify them at first glance. In fig. 1 - house sparrow, cockerel (male). This is in domestic animals, including birds too, boys and girls are called in different words: a ram and a sheep, a bull and a cow, a chicken and a rooster, a duck and a drake, a gander and a goose, a turkey and a turkey. In the wild, they are usually called by one word, to which I am still not used to: the raven is not the raven's husband, but a completely different bird. And the husband of a crow is also a crow, only he, not she. Scientifically - a male crow. However, for the female sparrow, there is also, if not scientific, but playfully folk, but a separate name - the sparrow. It's almost like a pet!

Rice. 1. House sparrow, male

Let's take a closer look at this sparrow. He has a gray cap on his head, the sides of his head are brown (chestnut). The feathers between the beak and the eye (this place is called the bridle) are black, black covers the eye from below. A black tie flows from his throat to his chest. Behind the eye is a small white speck. What I have just listed is the distinctive features of a bird. Not all of them, there are much more of them in the qualifiers, but for now this is enough for us - you do not doubt that this is a sparrow? A sparrow holds a fluff in its beak. It is he who builds the nest and looks closely, will it fit? The choice of material for the nest of birds is very meticulous. They choose for a long time, try on, and it is not a fact that the chosen one will do. At these moments, they are especially interesting to watch, be it a tiny wren or a large stork. House sparrows nest in the crevices of buildings, sometimes in completely unexpected places: somewhere behind the sign of a popular store. If only the nest was not visible from the outside. They start nesting early - this picture was taken in April - and during the season they manage to breed up to four parties of their own kind. The inevitable winter death must be compensated ...

Now let's look at the photo of the female (Fig. 2). It can be seen that she is dressed much more modestly. It is usually the other way around for people, but for birds it’s the only way: gentlemen attract ladies. Here we have to mention one more special term: sexual dimorphism. Morph is a collection of external features, "di" means two, twice, or division. Simply put, we are talking about the external difference between males and females. On the example of the house sparrow, this is clearly noticeable, however, not all birds are like this: in about half of the species, the females and males are indistinguishable. There are those for whom the differences are very weak, and you need to have some experience to find them, especially in the field. As you can see, the female does not have a gray cap, the top of the head is monophonic, ocher-brown, a black spot on the throat is barely noticeable, and on the chest it is absent altogether. You can identify other signs yourself from the picture. Pay attention to the color of the stripe running across the wing in the male and the female - this is also a distinctive feature.

Rice. 2. House sparrow, female

Let's move on to the field sparrows (Fig. 3, 4). Look: the hat on the head is not gray, but chestnut. But the main sign by which the field sparrow differs from the brownie at first glance is a bright black spot on the white cheek, you will not be mistaken even from a great distance. And you don't have to think whether a boy or a girl is in front of you - just this species lacks sexual dimorphism.

Rice. 3. Field Sparrow

Rice. 4. Field Sparrow

The house sparrow is a city dweller. He reaches out not just to people, but to their clusters. Everyone, I think, saw flocks of these birds at train stations right under the feet of passers-by, near street cafes, playgrounds and other similar places. Even pigeons are not so annoying. In fig. 5 sparrows are cheekily sitting on the McDonald's table, but they have a greedy client: all the food is in bags, bite off a piece and immediately move it to him. But there are also good ones - they will give crumbs. If they don’t, they’ll find the little sparrows on the tables themselves. And brownies mostly nest in high-rise buildings: there are more places, and people too. Everyone is so used to them that most of them don't pay attention to them. And in vain, because these birds even have facial expressions - they probably took over from people. These were the first birds that I learned to photograph (I think, like most photo hunters), and as a result, I have amassed a whole collection of one and a half hundred pictures. They look for food on them, bask in the morning sun after a cold night, survive the frost, shrinking into a ball, drink water from a puddle, bathe in it on a hot day, and if there is no puddle, then in the dust, feed the chicks that have flown out, select material for the nest , and just chirping. And all this - with an expression on the "face". I even picked up comic names for these pictures. Look at this either a Cossack or a Mameluke in fig. 6: you can't even say that this formidable fighter going into the attack is a simple sparrow. In fact, he was just bathed in dust, and the camera shutter clicked at the right moment when he ruffled so picturesquely.

Rice. 5. Sparrows and a greedy uncle

Rice. 6. "Mameluk"

In fig. 7 daddy sparrow feeds chick half-eaten corn. According to the type of development, birds are divided into chicks and broods. The former include, in particular, most of the small passerine birds, woodpeckers, and pigeons. The second - geese, ducks, chickens, both wild, for example, upland - capercaillie, black grouse and hazel grouse, and domestic. Broodlings hatch from eggs ready to feed on their own and follow their parents, who at first only take care of them. Chicks are born naked and helpless, their parents feed them until they leave the nest and even for some time after. The fact is that if the nest is found by a predator, then all the offspring will die, therefore, in many birds, the chicks leave the nest, often not even being able to fly. Such birds are called fledglings. Even if they die, it is not all at once. They can often be seen in the forest or in the park, especially blackbirds. Many people think that the chick is lost, they pick it up and drag it home. This chick will almost certainly die, so don't do it. Parents find such chicks and feed them, but it is impossible for an unknowing person to feed a chick at home. Once in the Crimea, I was returning from the Kazantip nature reserve (I was allowed to visit it) and at the border I saw a young man who was catching grasshoppers with a baby net. We used to catch in childhood too - grayling and chub nibbled on them well, but there are no rivers near Kazantip, and they don't catch grasshoppers in the sea. It turned out that people had picked up the little bird that had fallen out of the nest, but they did not know what to do with it further. With the help of the Internet, we found out that he needed to give at least thirty large grasshoppers a day, so instead of a beach holiday he had to wander along the dry steppe ... I hope that with such efforts this chick still survived.

Rice. 7. House sparrow-dad feeds either daughter or son

As for the field sparrows, they are rather not even field sparrows, but rural ones. They also gravitate towards humans: as experts say, they live in anthropogenic landscapes, that is, not natural, but exposed to human influence. In this sense, they are very flexible, but avoid multi-storey buildings. They can be found both in the city park and in the village, in the nearby fields, on farms and near other structures. For example, in the Moscow park Tsaritsyno, not far from which I live, it is the field people who live. They nest there in the hollows and crowns of trees. In general, many birds live in Moscow parks, even rare ones - we will still talk about them. And the crumbs from the tables are not picked up by the field - if they are already pecking the remnants of human food, then not from under their hands. And so they are omnivorous, feed on seeds and grains of plants, berries, insects. What God will send. But it is worth moving away from the park to the nearest courtyards, and house sparrows already reign here.

That, perhaps, is all about the sparrows. There are about 10,000 bird species in the world (ornithologists do not know the exact number either, since they do not have a consensus on the order of determining the species). In any case, this is a lot. Our country is not the richest in terms of species diversity, less than 500 can be found within the European part, but this is also a lot. Some of the birds live sedentary, some only nest and fly away for wintering, some more are found only on migration. So it's time for the sparrows, as they say, and the honor of knowing, let's move on to others. By the way, before I became interested in photography, I also did not know that there are different sparrows. And this summer I visited Bulgaria and there I met another species - black-breasted, or Spanish, sparrow (Passer hispaniolensis)... Their male is a real grand, look at fig. eight.

Rice. 8. Black-breasted (Spanish) sparrow, male

Big book about little snowflakes

Timofey Cherepanov

Created in the intellectual publishing system Ridero.ru

Snow
Again he falls, wonderfully silent,
Swings and falls easily ...
How sweet to the heart is his happy flight!
Non-existent, he is born again ...

All the same, came again, from nowhere,
In it are cold temptations, in it oblivion ...
I always wait for him, as I expect a miracle from God,
And I know a strange unity with him.

Let it go again - but the loss is not terrible.
I am glad of his mysterious departure.
I will forever wait for his silent return
You, oh gentle, you, the only one.

He falls quietly, and slow and domineering ...
I am immensely happy with his victory ...
Of all the wonders of the earth, you, oh beautiful snow,
I love you ... For what I love - I do not know.

Zinaida Gippius

Half of the world's population has never seen snow. Accordingly, the other half saw. As of January 1, 2015, the number of people on Earth was 7,263,339,729. Unfortunately, it is impossible to determine half of this number, because the divisible number is odd, and people cannot be divided in half. But even approximately this is a lot - more than 3.6 billion.

At the same time, all these people (except, of course, babies) know that snow is made of snowflakes. Scientists did not stand aside here either: they calculated that 1 septillion of snowflakes falls to the ground annually. This is one and 24 zeros. To get such a number, you need to square a billion and multiply the result by a million. Now we ourselves, using simple division, can determine that for every inhabitant of the "happy" half, including babies, there are approximately 275 trillion snowflakes. Perhaps more than enough to know everything about them. Well, at least about their appearance.

However, the very fact that you are now holding this book in your hands speaks of your desire to learn more. This seems completely natural to me, and you will also be convinced of this when you read or at least look through this book to the end, so do not rush to put it aside. A world will open before you that you most likely did not even know about. Amazing and wonderful world of snow crystals. They literally fall in great numbers on our heads, but it would not be a great exaggeration to say that the overwhelming majority of people do not know anything or almost nothing about snowflakes.

Just a few years ago, I was no different in this regard either, until one day the idea occurred to me to photograph a snowflake. It came purely by accident, the record in the file of that picture preserved the date and time - it happened on January 1, 2009 at 14.59. The city was empty, still sleeping off after the New Year. And I went for a walk with the dog. Individual snowflakes fell on everything around, and each could be seen. But they are so small ... So I returned home, put some macro objects on my camera and went out into the yard again. I found the most beautiful snowflake on the bench and photographed it. Many people do this - almost everyone has modern cameras, and macro photography these days is also not extremely difficult. In this case, the statement that people know almost nothing about snowflakes is doubly incomprehensible. However, this becomes clear to anyone who tries to put it into practice. Even specialized macro lenses provide shooting at a scale of up to 1: 1, that is, the image on the camera's sensor will be the same size as the object itself. Snowflakes measuring 4 mm are already considered very large. Matrices of professional SLR cameras have a size of 24x36 mm, the area of the so-called "cropped" cameras is about half the size. The matrixes of compact cameras are much smaller, but their lenses do not provide such a scale of shooting. In any case, it turns out that the image of a snowflake takes up only a small part of the frame. This, of course, is better than observing with the naked eye, but clearly not enough for full-fledged research. Those who make such attempts, in a completely natural way, choose the largest crystals of the "classical" shape for shooting, and it is they who form the established image of a snowflake in the form of six rays diverging in one plane. This image, by the way, was formed long before the invention of photography.

Images of snowflakes have even been found in petroglyphs - rock paintings of the Neolithic era on the shores of Lake Onega. They were made several thousand years before our era. Despite the primitivism of the images and the error in counting - the number of rays is not equal to six - there is no doubt that the ancient man carved a snowflake on the stone. Snowflakes can also be seen on some old icons.

At the very beginning of the 17th century, Johannes Kepler wrote a small treatise On Hexagonal Snowflakes. It was published in Russian translation1 and is interesting, perhaps, to a greater extent as a historical document, although in the scientific world it is believed that by this Kepler laid the foundation for the science of crystallography. It's not for me to judge this, but it's interesting to read. At least in that respect, to understand what science was like in those days. In the absence of at least some theory in its modern understanding, Kepler speculatively tries to substantiate why snowflakes are hexagonal, and do not have, say, five or seven corners or edges. Considering such analogies as a honeycomb, pomegranate seeds or peas in a pod.

No science of nature is inconceivable without a sufficient amount of experimental material. It would seem that with such an astronomical number of snowflakes falling to the ground, there should be no problems with this. However, snow is not snowflakes, although it is formed from them. It is unrealistic to extract from the mass of even freshly fallen snow a single snowflake. Even if such an idea came to someone's head and was implemented, the value of the material obtained in this way would be very low. The reason is that, chemically, snowflakes are composed of water, only in a solid state of aggregation. These are ice crystals. Substances, as you know, have a third aggregate state - gaseous, or vapor. Everyone has the opportunity to observe how ice and snow turn into a liquid phase when they melt. Likewise, everyone has seen how water turns into steam when boiling. However, the third process, called sublimation, remains practically invisible to the eye. This is when a solid (in this case ice) turns into gaseous directly, bypassing the liquid phase. Snow has a very low density compared to water. Freshly fallen, it is 95% air, filling all the space between the crystals. It follows from this that snow has a huge surface of contact with air, which is a prerequisite for intense sublimation. It is known that half of the snowfall evaporates during the winter.

Therefore, if we want to get reliable information about snowflakes, we must examine them immediately after the fall, and not when they lie in a snowdrift. My experience says that at temperatures of about -5 ° C, pictures of a snowflake taken at an interval of one minute are already very different from each other: corners are rounded, beams are shortened, and small elements disappear altogether. We are not talking about any melting here, there is no transformation into a liquid phase at such a temperature. At lower temperatures, the process slows down, but is still noticeable. In addition, the formation of different forms of snowflakes is characteristic for different temperatures, so chasing the cold is not a way out.

That is why photographing snowflakes is a kind of hunting. You need to catch the falling snowflake, somehow isolate it from others and take a picture as quickly as possible. It goes without saying that this should be done at a negative temperature, otherwise it will simply turn into a droplet of water within seconds. If we talk not about shooting one or two "to try", but about serious long-term work, then the main enemy is not at all warm, but, on the contrary, frost. Here, without frost, certainly nowhere. The snowflake is the same "granddaughter" of Santa Claus, like the mythological Snow Maiden, only she is real. When I am asked what is necessary for photographing snowflakes, I half-jokingly, half-seriously answer: "Sheepskin coat and felt boots." The work is motionless, while subtle - this is essentially microscopy! No matter how warm you dress, you can't stand it for long. Hands freeze most of all, because it is impossible to work with buttons in gloves.

And the technique also has a hard time. Usually photographers hide cameras under their clothes in winter, taking them out only to take a picture. Immediately, this is out of the question - the camera stands motionless on a massive tripod. You've probably noticed that microscopes are mounted on massive bases? This is done to reduce the influence of vibrations. The same must be done in this case. And these are not all the problems that await the photographer of snowflakes, they can be listed for quite a long time, but I am not writing a manual for photographers, but a book about snowflakes.