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Thursday, March 19, 2009

The King of the Birds

by The Brothers Grimm
German Household Tales

One day the birds took it into their heads that they would like a master, and that one of their number must be chosen king. A meeting of all the birds was called, and on a beautiful May morning they assembled from woods and fields and meadows. The eagle, the robin, the bluebird, the owl, the lark, the sparrow were all there. The cuckoo came, and the lapwing, and so did all the other birds, too numerous to mention. There also came a very little bird that had no name at all.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Babes in the Woods

by John Burroughs
Bird Stories from Burroughs

One day in early May, Ted and I made an expedition to the Shattega, a still, dark, deep stream that loiters silently through the woods not far from my cabin. As we paddled along, we were on the alert for any bit of wild life of bird or beast that might turn up.

There were so many abandoned woodpecker chambers in the small dead trees as we went along that I determined to secure the section of a tree containing a good one to take home and put up for the bluebirds. "Why don't the bluebirds occupy them here?" inquired Ted. "Oh," I replied, "blue birds do not come so far into the woods as this. They prefer nesting-places in the open, and near human habitations." After carefully scrutinizing several of the trees, we at last saw one that seemed to fill the bill. It was a small dead tree trunk seven or eight inches in diameter, that leaned out over the water, and from which the top had been broken. The hole, round and firm, was ten or twelve feet above us. After considerable effort I succeeded in breaking the stub off near the ground, and brought it down into the boat.

"Just the thing," I said, "surely the bluebirds will prefer this to an artificial box." But, lo and behold, it already had bluebirds in it! We had not heard a sound or seen a feather till the trunk was in our hands, when, on peering into the cavity, we discovered two young bluebirds about half grown. This was a predicament indeed!

Well, the only thing we could do was to stand the tree-trunk up again as well as we could, and as near as we could to where it had stood before. This was no easy thing. But after a time we had it fairly well replaced, one end standing in the mud of the shallow water and the other resting against a tree. This left the hole to the nest about ten feet below and to one side of its former position. Just then we heard the voice of one of the parent birds, and we quickly paddled to the other side of the stream, fifty feet away, to watch her proceedings, saying to each other, "Too bad! too bad!" The mother bird had a large beetle in her beak. She alighted upon a limb a few feet above the former site of her nest, looked down upon us, uttered a note or two, and then dropped down confidently to the point in the vacant air where the entrance to her nest had been but a few moments before. Here she hovered on the wing a second or two, looking for something that was not there, and then returned to the perch she had just left, apparently not a little disturbed. She hammered the beetle rather excitedly upon the limb a few times, as if it were in some way at fault, then dropped down to try for her nest again. Only vacant air there! She hovers and hovers, her blue wings flickering in the checkered light - surely that precious hole MUST be there - but no, again she is baffled, and again she returns to her perch, and mauls the poor beetle till it must be reduced to a pulp. Then she makes a third attempt, then a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, till she becomes very much excited. "What could have happened? Am I dreaming? Has that beetle hoodooed me?" she seems to say, and in her dismay she lets the bug drop, and looks bewilderedly about her. Then she flies away through the woods, calling. "Going for her mate," I said to Ted. "She is in deep trouble, and she wants sympathy and help."

In a few minutes we heard her mate answer, and presently the two birds came hurrying to the spot, both with loaded beaks. They perched upon the familiar limb above the site of the nest, and the mate seemed to say, "My dear, what has happened to you? I can find that nest." And he dived down, and brought up in the empty air just as the mother had done. How he winnowed it with his eager wings! How he seemed to bear on to that blank space! His mate sat regarding him intently, confident, I think, that he would find the clue. But he did not. Baffled and excited, he returned to the perch beside her. Then she tried again, then he rushed down once more, then they both assaulted the place, but it would not give up its secret. They talked, they encouraged each other, and they kept up the search, now one, now the other, now both together. Sometimes they dropped down to within a few feet of the entrance to the nest, and we thought they would surely find it. No, their minds and eyes were intent only upon that square foot of space where the nest had been. Soon they withdrew to a large limb many feet higher up, and seemed to say to themselves,

"Well, it is not there, but it must be here somewhere - let us look about." A few minutes elapsed, when we saw the mother bird spring from her perch and go straight as an arrow to the nest. Her maternal eye had proved the quicker. She had found her young. Something like reason and common sense had come to her rescue - she had taken time to look about, and behold! there was that precious doorway. She thrust her head into it, then sent back a call to her mate, then went farther in, then withdrew. "Yes, it is true, they are here, they are here!" Then she went in again, gave them the food in her beak, and then gave place to her mate, who, after similar demonstrations of joy, also gave them his morsel.

Ted and I breathed freer. A burden had been taken from our minds and hearts, and we went cheerfully on our way. We had learned something, too - we had learned that when in the deep woods you think of bluebirds, bluebirds may be nearer you than you think.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Nonwoven Fibers Use

Nordic Swan for Nonwoven Fibers

The “Swan” is considered a leading certification system, which helps the entire supply chain up to the consumer to identify environmentally friendly products of high quality.

Viscose and TENCEL fiber fulfill the stringent requirements of the Nordic Ecolabel in terms of environment, quality and functionality since they are:
  • derived from the renewable raw material wood
  • produced in an environmentally responsible manner
  • pure, soft and absorbent in use
  • fully biodegradable after disposal
The certification of nonwoven fibers offers its customers the opportunity to have their own products certified with the Nordic ecolabel in the following nonwoven categories: “Cosmetic Products” e.g. for wipes or cosmetic-pads and “Sanitary Products” e.g. for tampons, incontinence applications or surgical dressings.

Green Wipes are “In”

The world of wipes is extremely dynamic. In the beginning wet wipes were cleaning tools combining two components to ease use. Wipes have evolved into high-performance delivery systems which absorb, retain and release lotion on demand.

Today the wipes applications fully meet the requirements of the consumers - convenience is key. Nonwoven fibers offer specific solutions for manifold applications.

However, focus is not only placed on performance factors but also on environmental aspects. Being made from wood, nonwoven fibers have become the 'in' product of choice for branded and private label companies looking for environmentally responsible wiping products.

Environmental protection, global warming and energy consumption - these issues have been in the media for more than just the past few months. This continual presence of environmental topics in the media has impact on the buying behavior of consumers: They want to know whether wipes are environmentally responsible or not.

Wipes made from nonwoven fibers solve the day to day problems of consumers while improving their own personal environment and simultaneously being kind to the planet.

In 2008, nonwoven fibers were certified as "compostable" materials and awarded with the Nordic Swan. Eco-Labels and Oeco-Tex certificates help consumers to identify environmentally responsible products. This fiber also as a material for textile industry like cotton and silk as natural raw material sources.
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