Stories about native nature. Fairy tales and stories about nature. Mikhail Prishvin "In the city"

17.06.2019

Chanterelle bread

Once I walked through the forest all day and returned home in the evening with rich booty. I took off my heavy bag from my shoulders and began to spread my goods on the table.

- What kind of bird is this? Zinochka asked.

"Terenty," I replied.

And he told her about the black grouse: how he lives in the forest, how he mumbles in the spring, how he pecks at birch buds, picks berries in the swamps in autumn, warms himself from the wind under the snow in winter. He also told her about the hazel grouse, showed her that he was grey, with a tuft, and whistled into a pipe in a hazel grouse and let her whistle. I also poured a lot of porcini mushrooms, both red and black, on the table.

I also had a bloody stoneberry in my pocket, and blueberries, and red lingonberries. I also brought with me a fragrant lump of pine resin, gave the girl a sniff and said that trees are treated with this resin.

Who is treating them there? Zinochka asked.

“They are curing themselves,” I replied. - Sometimes a hunter comes, he wants to rest, he will stick an ax into a tree and hang a bag on an ax, and he will lie down under a tree. Sleep, rest. He takes out an ax from a tree, puts on a bag, leaves. And from the wound from the ax made of wood, this fragrant tar will run and this wound will be tightened.

Also on purpose for Zinochka, I brought various wonderful herbs by leaf, by root, by flower: cuckoo's tears, valerian, Petrov's cross, hare cabbage. And just under the hare cabbage I had a piece of black bread: it always happens to me that when I don’t take bread to the forest, I’m hungry, but if I take it, I forget to eat it and bring it back. And Zinochka, when she saw black bread under my hare cabbage, was stunned:

“Where did the bread come from in the forest?”

- What's so amazing about that? After all, there is cabbage there!

- Hare...

- And the bread is lisichkin. Taste.

Carefully tasted and began to eat.

- Good fox bread!

And ate all my black bread clean. And so it went with us: Zinochka, such a copula, often doesn’t even take white bread, but when I bring fox bread from the forest, she always eats it all and praises:

- Chanterelle's bread is much better than ours!

"Inventor"

In one swamp, on a hummock under a willow, wild mallard ducklings hatched.

Shortly thereafter, their mother led them to the lake along a cow trail. I noticed them from afar, hid behind a tree, and the ducklings came up to my very feet. I took three of them for my upbringing, the remaining sixteen went further along the cow path.

I kept these black ducklings with me, and soon they all turned gray.

After one of the gray ones came out a handsome multi-colored drake and two ducks, Dusya and Musya. We clipped their wings so that they would not fly away, and they lived in our yard with poultry: we had chickens and geese.

With the onset new spring we made hummocks for our savages from all sorts of rubbish in the basement, as in a swamp, and nests on them. Dusya put sixteen eggs in her nest and began to hatch ducklings. Musya put fourteen, but did not want to sit on them. No matter how we fought empty head didn't want to be a mother. And we planted our important black hen, the Queen of Spades, on duck eggs.

The time has come, our ducklings have hatched. We kept them warm in the kitchen for a while, crumbled their eggs, and took care of them.

A few days later came very good, warm weather, and Dusya led her little black ones to the pond, and Queen of Spades their own - in the garden for worms.

— Swish-swish! - ducklings in the pond.

- Quack-quack! - answers the duck.

— Swish-swish! - ducklings in the garden.

- Kwoh-kwoh! the chicken answers.

The ducklings, of course, cannot understand what “quoh-quoh” means, and what is heard from the pond is well known to them.

"Swiss-swiss" - this means: "ours to ours."

And “quack-quack” means: “you are ducks, you are mallards, swim quickly!” And they, of course, look there, to the pond.

- Yours to yours!

- Swim, swim!

And they float.

- Kwoh-kwoh! - rests an important bird chicken on the shore.

They keep swimming and swimming. They whistled, swam, joyfully accepted them into her family Dusya; according to Musa, they were her own nephews.

All day long a large combined duck family swam in the pond, and all day the Queen of Spades, fluffy, angry, cackled, grumbled, dug worms on the shore with her foot, tried to attract ducklings with worms and cackled to them that there were too many worms, so good worms!

- Dirty-dirty! the mallard answered her.

And in the evening she led all her ducklings with one long rope along a dry path. Right under your nose important bird they passed, black, with big duck noses; no one even looked at such a mother.

We collected them all in one tall basket and left them to spend the night in a warm kitchen, near the stove.

In the morning, when we were still sleeping, Dusya got out of the basket, walked around on the floor, screamed, called the ducklings to her. In thirty voices, whistlers answered her cry.

To the duck cry of the wall of our house, made of sonorous pine forest responded in their own way. And yet, in this commotion, we heard separately the voice of one duckling.

- Do you hear? I asked my guys.

They listened.

- We hear! they shouted.

And we went to the kitchen.

It turned out that Dusya was not alone on the floor. One duckling ran next to her, was very worried and whistled continuously. This duckling, like all the others, was the size of a small cucumber. How could such and such a warrior climb over the wall of a basket thirty centimeters high?

We all began to guess about it, and then a new question arose: did the duckling itself come up with some way to get out of the basket after its mother, or did she accidentally touch it somehow with its wing and throw it away? I tied the duckling's leg with a ribbon and put it into the common herd.

We slept through the night, and in the morning, as soon as the morning duck's cry was heard in the house, we went to the kitchen.

On the floor, along with Dusya, a duckling with a bandaged paw was running.

All the ducklings imprisoned in the basket whistled, rushed to freedom and could not do anything. This one got out. I said:

- He's up to something.

He is an inventor! Leva shouted.

Then I decided to see how this “inventor” solves the most difficult task: to climb a sheer wall on his webbed duck feet. I got up the next morning before light, when both my guys and

the ducklings slept soundly. In the kitchen, I sat down near the light switch so that I could turn on the light as soon as I needed to and see what was happening at the back of the basket.

And then the window turned white. It began to get light.

- Quack-quack! Dusya said.

— Swish-swish! - answered the only duckling.

And everything froze. The boys were sleeping, the ducklings were sleeping.

The factory horn blew. The world has increased.

- Quack-quack! Dusya repeated.

Nobody answered. I understood: the "inventor" now has no time - now, probably, he is solving his most difficult task. And I turned on the light.

Well, that's what I knew! The duck had not yet risen, and its head was still level with the edge of the basket. All the ducklings slept warmly under their mother, only one, with a bandaged paw, crawled out and, like bricks, climbed up on the mother's feathers, onto her back. When Dusya got up, she lifted him high, to the level with the edge of the basket. A duckling, like a mouse, ran along her back to the edge - and somersault down! Following him, his mother also fell out on the floor, and the usual morning commotion began: screaming, whistling for the whole house.

Two days later, in the morning, three ducklings appeared on the floor at once, then five, and it went on and on: as soon as Dusya grunts in the morning, all the ducklings on her back and then fall down.

And the first duckling, who paved the way for others, my children called the Inventor.

Guys and ducks

A little wild duck, the whistling teal, finally decided to transfer her ducklings from the forest, bypassing the village, into the lake to freedom. In the spring, this lake overflowed far, and a solid place for a nest could be found only three miles away, on a hummock, in a marshy forest. And when the water subsided, I had to travel all three miles to the lake.

In places open to the eye of a man, a fox and a hawk, the mother walked behind, so as not to let the ducklings out of sight even for a minute. And near the forge, when crossing the road, she, of course, let them go forward. Here the guys saw them and threw their hats. All the time while they were catching ducklings, the mother ran after them with her beak open or flew several steps in different directions in the greatest excitement. The guys were just about to throw their hats on their mother and catch her like ducklings, but then I approached.

- What will you do with the ducklings? I asked the guys sternly.

They got scared and answered:

- Let's go.

- Here's something "let go"! I said very angrily. Why did you have to catch them? Where is mother now?

- He's sitting there! - the guys answered in unison.

And they pointed me to a close mound of a fallow field, where the duck really sat with its mouth open from excitement.

“Quickly,” I ordered the guys, “go and return all the ducklings to her!”

They even seemed to rejoice at my order, and ran straight up the hill with the ducklings. The mother flew off a little and, when the guys left, she rushed to save her sons and daughters. In her own way, she said something quickly to them and ran to the oat field. Ducklings ran after her - five pieces. And so through the oat field, bypassing the village, the family continued their journey to the lake.

Joyfully, I took off my hat and, waving it, shouted:

— Good luck, ducklings!

The guys laughed at me.

“What are you laughing at, fools? I said to the guys. “Do you think it’s so easy for ducklings to get into the lake?” Quickly take off all your hats, shout "goodbye"!

And the same hats, dusty on the road while catching ducklings, rose into the air, the guys all shouted at once:

- Goodbye, ducklings!

forest doctor

We wandered in the spring in the forest and observed the life of hollow birds: woodpeckers, owls. Suddenly in the direction where we had previously planned interesting tree we heard the sound of a saw. It was, we were told, cutting firewood from deadwood for a glass factory. We were afraid for our tree, hurried to the sound of the saw, but it was too late: our aspen lay, and around its stump there were many empty fir cones. The woodpecker peeled all this over the long winter, collected it, wore it on this aspen, laid it between two bitches of his workshop and hollowed it out. Near the stump, on our cut aspen, two boys were resting. These two boys were only engaged in sawing the forest.

- Oh, you pranksters! - we said and pointed them to the cut aspen. - You are ordered to cut dead trees, and what did you do?

“The woodpecker made holes,” the guys answered. - We looked and, of course, sawed off. It will still disappear.

They all began to examine the tree together. It was quite fresh, and only in a small space, no more than a meter in length, did a worm pass through the trunk. The woodpecker, obviously, listened to the aspen like a doctor: he tapped it with his beak, understood the void left by the worm, and proceeded to the operation of extracting the worm. And the second time, and the third, and the fourth... The thin aspen trunk looked like a flute with valves. Seven holes were made by the "surgeon" and only on the eighth he captured the worm, pulled out and saved the aspen. We carved this piece as a wonderful exhibit for the museum.

“You see,” we said to the guys, “the woodpecker is a forest doctor, he saved the aspen, and it would live and live, and you cut it off.

The boys marveled.

Hedgehog

Once I was walking along the bank of our stream and noticed a hedgehog under a bush. He also noticed me, curled up and mumbled: knock-knock-knock. It was very similar, as if a car was moving in the distance. I touched it with the tip of my boot; he snorted terribly and jabbed his needles into his boot.

- Oh, you are so with me! I said, and with the tip of my boot shoved him into the stream.

Instantly, the hedgehog turned around in the water and swam to the shore like a small pig, only instead of bristles on its back there were needles. I took a stick, rolled the hedgehog into my hat and carried it home.

I had a lot of mice, I heard - the hedgehog catches them, and decided: let him live with me and catch mice.

So, I put this prickly lump in the middle of the floor and sat down to write, while I myself looked at the hedgehog out of the corner of my eye. He did not lie motionless for a long time: as soon as I calmed down at the table, the hedgehog turned around, looked around, tried to go there, here and finally chose a place for himself under the bed and there it completely calmed down.

When it got dark, I lit the lamp and — hello! The hedgehog ran out from under the bed. He, of course, thought to the lamp that it was the moon that had risen in the forest: in the moonlight, hedgehogs like to run through the forest clearings. And so he started running around the room, imagining that this forest clearing. I picked up the pipe, lit a cigarette and let a cloud near the moon. It became just like in the forest: the moon and the clouds, and my legs were like tree trunks and, probably, the hedgehog really liked it, he darted between them, sniffing and scratching the back of my boots with needles.

After reading the newspaper, I dropped it on the floor, went to bed and fell asleep.

I always sleep very lightly. I hear - some rustling in my room, struck a match, lit a candle and just noticed how a hedgehog flashed under the bed. And the newspaper was no longer lying near the table, but in the middle of the room. So I left the candle burning and I don’t sleep myself, thinking: “Why did the hedgehog need a newspaper?” Soon my tenant ran out from under the bed - and straight to the newspaper, spun around near it, made noise, noise, and finally contrived: he somehow put a corner of the newspaper on the thorns and dragged it, huge, into the corner.

Then I understood him: the newspaper was like dry leaves in the forest, he dragged it to himself for a nest. And it turned out, however, that soon the hedgehog all turned into a newspaper and made a real nest out of it. Having finished this important business, he went out of his dwelling and stood opposite the bed, looking at the candle - the moon.

I let the clouds in and I ask:

— What else do you need?

The hedgehog was not afraid.

- Do you want to drink?

I wake up. The hedgehog does not run.

I took a plate, put it on the floor, brought a bucket of water, and now I pour water into the plate, then pour it into the bucket again, and I make such a noise as if it were a stream splashing.

“Well, go, go,” I say, “you see, I arranged the moon for you, and let the clouds go, and here’s water for you ...

I look like I'm moving forward. And I also moved my lake a little towards it. He will move - and I will move, and so they agreed.

“Drink,” I say finally.

He began to cry.

And I so lightly ran my hand over the thorns, as if stroking, and I keep saying:

"You're a good fellow, a good one!"

The hedgehog got drunk, I say:

- Let's sleep.

Lie down and blow out the candle.

I don’t know how much I slept, I hear: again I have work in my room.

I light a candle - and what do you think? The hedgehog runs around the room, and on the thorns he has an apple. He ran to the nest, put it there and after another runs into a corner, and in the corner there was a bag of apples and collapsed. Here the hedgehog ran up, curled up near the apples, twitched and runs again - on the thorns he drags another apple into the nest.

And so I got a hedgehog. And now, like drinking tea, I will certainly put it on my table and either I pour milk on a saucer for him - he will drink it, then I will give the ladies buns - he will eat it.

golden meadow

My brother and I, when dandelions ripen, had constant fun with them. Sometimes, we go somewhere to our craft, he is in front, I am in the heel.

"Seryozha!" - I will call him in a businesslike manner. He'll look back, and I'll blow a dandelion right in his face. For this, he begins to watch for me and, as you gape, he also fuknet. And so we plucked these uninteresting flowers just for fun. But once I managed to make a discovery.

We lived in the village, in front of the window we had a meadow, all golden from many blooming dandelions. It was very beautiful. Everyone said: “Very beautiful! Golden Meadow. One day I got up early to fish and noticed that the meadow was not golden, but green. When I returned home around noon, the meadow was again all golden. I began to observe. By evening the meadow turned green again. Then I went and found a dandelion, and it turned out that he squeezed his petals, as if our fingers were yellow on the side of the palm of our hand and, clenched into a fist, we would close the yellow. In the morning, when the sun rose, I saw how dandelions open their palms and from this the meadow becomes golden again.

Since then, dandelion has become for us one of the most interesting colors because dandelions went to bed with us children and got up with us.

beast chipmunk

One can easily understand why the sika deer has frequent white spots scattered everywhere on its skin.

Once I'm on Far East He walked very quietly along the path and, without knowing it himself, stopped near the lurking deer. They hoped that I would not notice them under the broad-leaved trees, in the dense grass. But, it happened, a deer tick painfully bit a small calf; he trembled, the grass swayed, and I saw him and everyone. It was then that I realized why deer have spots. The day was sunny, and in the forest there were "bunnies" on the grass - exactly the same as those of deer and fallow deer. With such "bunnies" it is easier to hide. But for a long time I could not understand why the deer has a large white circle like a napkin on the back and near the tail, and if the deer gets scared and rushes to run, then this napkin becomes even wider, much more noticeable. Why do deer need these napkins?

I thought about it and here's how I figured it out.

Once we caught wild deer and began to feed them in the home nursery with beans and corn. In winter, when in the taiga with such difficulty the deer gets food, they ate with us the most favorite and most delicious dish in the nursery. And they are so accustomed to the fact that, when they see a bag of beans, they run to us and crowd around the trough. And they poke their muzzles so greedily and hurry that beans and corn often fall from the trough to the ground. Pigeons have already noticed this - they fly to peck grains under the very hooves of deer. Chipmunks also come running to collect falling beans, these small, very pretty striped animals that look like a squirrel. It is difficult to convey how shy these spotted deer are and what they can imagine. The female, our beautiful Hua-Lu, was especially shy.

It happened once, she ate beans in a trough next to other deer. Beans fell to the ground, pigeons and chipmunks ran close to the hooves of the deer. Here Hua-Lu accidentally stepped with her hoof on fluffy tail one animal, and this chipmunk in response dug into the leg of a deer. Hua-Lu shuddered, looked down, and she must have imagined the chipmunk as something terrible. How she throws herself! And behind it all at once on the fence, and - bang! Our fence fell down.

The small animal chipmunk, of course, immediately fell off, but for the frightened Hua-Lu, now it was not a small, but a huge chipmunk that was running after her, rushing in her footsteps. Other deer understood her in their own way and after her swiftly rushed. And all these deer would have run away and all our hard work would have been lost, but we had a German shepherd Taiga, well accustomed to these deer. We sent Taiga after them. Deer rushed in insane fear, and, of course, they thought that it was not the dog that was running after them, but the same terrible, huge beast, the chipmunk.

Many animals have such a habit that if they are driven, they run in a circle and return to the same place. This is how hare hunters chase dogs: the hare almost always runs to the same place where he lay, and then the shooter meets him. And the deer so rushed for a long time through the mountains and dales and returned to the same place where they live well - both hearty and warm.

And so the excellent, smart dog Taiga returned the reindeer to us. But I almost forgot about the white napkins, which is why I started this story. When Hua-Lu threw herself over the fallen fence and the white napkin became much wider, much more noticeable from fear behind her, then only this flickering white napkin was visible in the bushes. Another deer ran after her along this white spot, and he himself also showed his deer to the deer following him. White spot. It was then that I guessed for the first time what these white napkins serve for sika deer. In the taiga, after all, not only a chipmunk - there is a wolf, and a leopard, and the tiger itself. One deer will notice the enemy, rush, show a white spot and save the other, and this one saves the third, and all together come to a safe place.

white necklace

I heard in Siberia, near Lake Baikal, from one citizen about a bear and, I confess, I did not believe it. But he assured me that in the old days even a Siberian journal had published about this case under the title:

"The man with the bear against the wolves."

There lived one watchman on the shore of Lake Baikal, he caught fish, shot squirrels. And now, as if he sees this watchman through the window, he runs straight to the hut A big bear followed by a pack of wolves. That would be the end of the bear ... He, this bear, don’t be bad, in the hallway, the door behind him closed by itself, and he also leaned on her paw and leaned himself. The old man, realizing this matter, took the rifle from the wall and said:

- Misha, Misha, hold on!

The wolves climb on the door, and the old man aims the wolf out the window and repeats:

- Misha, Misha, hold on!

So he killed one wolf, and another, and a third, all the while saying:

- Misha, Misha, hold on...

After the third flock fled, and the bear remained in the hut to spend the winter under the protection of the old man. In the spring, when the bears come out of their lairs, the old man supposedly put a white necklace on this bear and ordered all the hunters not to shoot this bear - with a white necklace - this bear is his friend.

The conversation of birds and animals

Fun hunting for foxes with flags! They will go around the fox, recognize her lying down and through the bushes for a verst, two around the sleeping one they will hang a rope with red flags. The fox is very afraid of colored flags and the smell of calico, frightened, looking for a way out of the terrible circle. An exit is left for her, and near this place, under the cover of a Christmas tree, her hunter is waiting.

Such a hunt with flags is much more productive than with hounds. And this winter was so snowy, with such loose snow, that the dog was drowning up to his ears, and it became impossible to chase the foxes with the dog. Once, having exhausted myself and the dog, I said to the huntsman Mikhal Mikhalych:

- Let's leave the dogs, let's start the flags - because with the flags you can kill every fox.

- How is it for everyone? asked Michal Mikhalych.

“So simple,” I replied. - After the powder, we will take a fresh trail, go around, tighten the circle with flags, and our fox.

“It was in the old days,” said the huntsman. - It used to be that the fox sat for three days and did not dare to go beyond the flags. What a fox! The wolves sat for two days! Now the animals have become smarter, often chasing right under the flags, and goodbye.

“I understand,” I replied, “that seasoned animals, who have already been in trouble more than once, have grown wiser and go under the flags, but there are relatively few of them, the majority, especially young people, have never seen flags.

- Didn't see it! They don't even need to see. They have a conversation.

- What kind of conversation?

- Ordinary conversation. It happens that you set a trap, an old, smart beast will visit near, he will not like it and will move away. Others won't get very far. Well, tell me, how do they know?

- What do you think?

- I think, - answered Mikhal Mikhalych, - animals read.

- Do they read?

- Well, yes, they read with their noses. This can be seen in dogs as well. It is known how they leave their notes everywhere on the posts, on the bushes, others then go and take everything apart. So the fox, the wolf constantly read; We have eyes, they have a nose. The second thing for animals and birds, I think, is the voice. A raven flies and screams, at least we have something. And the fox pricked up its ears in the bushes, hurries into the field. A raven flies and cries above, and below, following the cry of a raven, a fox rushes at full speed. The raven descends on the carrion, and the fox is right there. What a fox! Haven't you ever guessed something from the call of a magpie?

Of course, like any hunter, I had to use the magpie's call, but Mikhal Mikhalych told a special case. Once he had dogs in a hare race. The hare suddenly seemed to have fallen through the ground. Then a magpie tickled in the other direction. The huntsman, stealthily, goes to the magpie so that she does not notice him. And this was in winter, when all the hares had already turned white, only all the snow had melted, and the white ones on the ground became far visible. The huntsman looked under the tree on which the magpie was tickling, and he sees: the white one simply lies on the green midge, and the little eyes, black as two bobbins, are looking ...

The magpie betrayed a hare, but she gives a man to a hare and to every animal, if only she would notice someone first.

“Do you know,” said Mikhal Mikhalych, “there is a small yellow swamp porridge.” When you enter the swamp for ducks, you begin to steal quietly. Suddenly, out of nowhere, this same yellow bird sits down on a reed in front of you, swings on it and squeaks. You go further, and she flies to another reed and squeaks and squeaks. It is she who lets know the entire swamp population; you look - there the ducks guessed the approach of the hunter and flew away, and there the cranes waved their wings, there snipes began to break out. And it's all her, it's all her. So the birds say differently, and the animals read the tracks more.

Birds under the snow

A hazel grouse in the snow has two salvations: the first is to spend the night warm under the snow, and the second is that the snow drags with it various seeds from the trees to the ground for food for the hazel grouse. Under the snow, the hazel grouse looks for seeds, makes moves there and windows up for air. Sometimes you go skiing in the forest, you look - a head appeared and hid: this is a hazel grouse. Not even two, but three rescues for a hazel grouse under the snow: warmth, food, and you can hide from a hawk.

The black grouse does not run under the snow, he would only have to hide from the weather.

Black grouse does not have big moves, like hazel grouses under the snow, but the arrangement of the apartment is also neat: in the back and a latrine, in front there is a hole above the head for air.

The gray partridge does not like to burrow in the snow and flies to spend the night in the village on the threshing floor. The partridge will spend the night in the village with the peasants and in the morning flies to feed on the same place. Partridge, according to my signs, has either lost her wildness, or is naturally stupid. The hawk notices her flights, and sometimes she is just about to fly out, and the hawk is already waiting for her on a tree.

Black grouse, I think, is much smarter than partridge. Once it was with me in the forest.

I'm going skiing red day, good frost. A large clearing opens before me, there are tall birches in the clearing, and on the birches the black grouse feed on their kidneys. I admired for a long time, but suddenly all the black grouse rushed down and buried themselves in the snow under the birches. At the same moment, a hawk appears, hits the place where the black grouse burrowed, and entered. But here he walks right above the black grouse, but he cannot guess and dig with his foot and grab it. I was very curious about this, I think: “If he walks, it means that he feels them under him, and the hawk’s mind is great, but there is no such thing as to guess and dig with his paw on some inch or two in the snow, which means that it’s not for him.” given."

Walks and walks.

I wanted to help the black grouse, and I began to hide the hawk. The snow is soft, the ski does not make noise, but as soon as I started to go around the clearing with bushes, I suddenly fell into the mush up to my ear. I got out of the hole, of course, not without noise, and thought: "The hawk heard this and flew away." I got out and I don’t even think about the hawk, but when I drove around the clearing and looked out from behind the tree, the hawk right in front of me walks for a short shot over the heads of the black grouse. I fired. He lay down. And the black grouse are so frightened by the hawk that they were not afraid of the shot. I approached them, shied away with my ski, and they, one after another, began to fly out from under the snow; who has never seen - will die.

I've seen enough of everything in the forest, it's all simple for me, but I'm still amazed at the hawk: he's so smart, but in this place he turned out to be such a fool. But I consider the partridge the most foolish of all. She spoiled herself among people on the threshing floors, she doesn’t have, like a black grouse, to, seeing a hawk, throw herself into the snow with all her might. A partridge from a hawk will only hide its head in the snow, and its tail is all in sight. The hawk takes her by the tail and drags her like a cook in a frying pan.

squirrel memory

Today, looking at the tracks of animals and birds in the snow, this is what I read from these tracks: a squirrel made its way through the snow into the moss, took out two nuts hidden there since autumn, ate them right away - I found the shells. Then she ran a dozen meters, dived again, again left the shell on the snow and after a few meters she made the third climb.

What a miracle You can't think that she could smell a nut through a thick layer of snow and ice. So, since the fall, she remembered her nuts and the exact distance between them.

But the most amazing thing is that she could not measure centimeters, as we do, but directly by eye with accuracy determined, dived and pulled out. Well, how could you not envy squirrel memory and ingenuity!

Forest floors

Birds and animals in the forest have their own floors: mice live in the roots - at the very bottom; different birds like the nightingale make their nests right on the ground; thrushes - even higher, on bushes; hollow birds - woodpecker, titmouse, owls - even higher; on the different height On the tree trunk and at the very top, predators settle: hawks and eagles.

I once had to observe in the forest that they, animals and birds, with floors are not like ours in skyscrapers: we can always change with someone, with them each breed certainly lives on its own floor.

Once, while hunting, we came to a clearing with dead birches. It often happens that birch trees grow to a certain age and dry up.

Another tree, having dried up, drops its bark on the ground, and therefore the bare wood soon rots and the whole tree falls; the bark of a birch does not fall; this resinous, white bark on the outside - birch bark - is an impenetrable case for a tree, and a dead tree stands for a long time, like a living one.

Even when the tree rots and the wood turns into dust, weighed down by moisture, in appearance White birch stands as if alive. But it is worthwhile, however, to give such a tree a good push, when suddenly it will break everything into heavy pieces and fall. Felling such trees is a very fun activity, but also dangerous: with a piece of wood, if you don’t dodge it, it can really hit you on the head. But still, we, hunters, are not very afraid, and when we get to such birches, we begin to destroy them in front of each other.

So we came to a clearing with such birches and brought down a rather tall birch. Falling, in the air it broke into several pieces, and in one of them there was a hollow with a nest of a Gadget. Little chicks were not injured when the tree fell, only fell out of the hollow together with their nest. Naked chicks, covered with feathers, opened wide red mouths and, mistaking us for parents, squeaked and asked us for a worm. We dug up the ground, found worms, gave them a bite to eat; they ate, swallowed and squeaked again.

Very soon, parents flew in, titmouse, with white puffy cheeks and worms in their mouths, sat on nearby trees.

“Hello, dear ones,” we said to them, “it’s a misfortune: we didn’t want this.

The Gadgets could not answer us, but, most importantly, they could not understand what had happened, where the tree had gone, where their children had disappeared.

They were not at all afraid of us, fluttering from branch to branch in great alarm.

- Yes, here they are! We showed them the nest on the ground. - Here they are, listen how they squeak, what your name is!

Gadgets did not listen to anything, fussed, worried and did not want to go downstairs and go beyond their floor.

“Maybe,” we said to each other, “they are afraid of us. Let's hide! - And they hid.

Not! The chicks squeaked, the parents squeaked, fluttered, but did not go down.

We guessed then that the birds are not like ours in skyscrapers, they cannot change floors: now it just seems to them that the whole floor with their chicks has disappeared.

“Oh-oh-oh,” said my companion, “well, what fools you are! ..

It became a pity and funny: they are so nice and with wings, but they don’t want to understand anything.

Then we took that large piece in which the nest was located, broke the top of the neighboring birch and put our piece with the nest on it just at the same height as the destroyed floor. We did not have to wait long in ambush: in a few minutes, happy parents met their chicks.

birch bark tube

I found amazing birch bark tube. When a person cuts a piece of birch bark for himself on a birch, the rest of the birch bark near the cut begins to curl up into a tube. The tube will dry out, curl up tightly. There are so many of them on birch trees that you don’t even pay attention.

But today I wanted to see if there was anything in such a tube.

And in the very first tube I found a good nut, stuck so tightly that I could hardly push it out with a stick.

There was no hazel around the birch. How did he get there?

“Probably the squirrel hid it there, making its winter supplies,” I thought. “She knew that the pipe would curl up tighter and tighter and grab the nut tighter and tighter so it wouldn’t fall out.”

But later I guessed that it was not a squirrel, but a nutlet bird stuck a nut, maybe stealing from a squirrel's nest.

Looking at my birch bark tube, I made another discovery: I settled under the cover of a walnut - who would have thought? - the spider and the entire inside of the tube tightened with its cobweb.

Many parents take the choice of children's books very seriously and reverently. Editions for children should awaken the warmest feelings in tender children's souls. Therefore, it is best to stop your choice on short stories about nature, its majesty and beauty.

A real naturalist, a connoisseur of swamps and forests, an excellent observer of the living life of nature is famous writer Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin (1873 - 1954). His stories, even the smallest ones, are simple and understandable. The skill of the author, his manner to convey all the consummate surrounding nature admire! He describes the noise of the wind, the smells of the forest, the habits of animals and their behavior, the rustling of leaves with such accuracy and reliability that when you read it, you involuntarily find yourself in this environment, experiencing everything together with the writer.

Once I walked through the forest all day and returned home in the evening with rich booty. I took off my heavy bag from my shoulders and began to spread my goods on the table. Read...

In one swamp, on a hummock under a willow, wild mallard ducklings hatched. Shortly thereafter, their mother led them to the lake along a cow trail. I noticed them from afar, hid behind a tree, and the ducklings came up to my very feet. Read...

A little wild duck, the whistling teal, finally decided to transfer her ducklings from the forest, bypassing the village, into the lake to freedom. Read...

My brother and I, when dandelions ripen, had constant fun with them. Sometimes, we go somewhere to our craft, he is in front, I am in the heel. Read...

Once we had it, we caught a young crane and gave it a frog. He swallowed it. Gave another - swallowed. The third, fourth, fifth, and then we didn’t have more frogs at hand. Read...

I will tell you an incident that happened to me in a hungry year. A yellow-mouthed young rook got into the habit of flying to me on the windowsill. Apparently, he was an orphan. Read...

Yarik became very friendly with the young Ryabchik and played with him all day. So, in the game, he spent a week, and then I moved with him from this city to a deserted house in the forest, six miles from Ryabchik. Before I had time to settle down and properly look around in a new place, when suddenly Yarik disappeared from me. Read...

My cop puppy is called Romulus, but I call him Roma or just Romka more, and sometimes I call him Roman Vasilich. Read...

It is known to all hunters how difficult it is to teach a dog not to chase animals, cats and hares, but to look only for a bird. Read...

The dog, just like the fox and the cat, approaches the prey. And suddenly freeze. This is what hunters call a stance. Read...

Three years ago I was in Zavidovo, the farm of the Military Hunting Society. The huntsman Nikolai Kamolov suggested that I look at his nephew's one-year-old bitch, pointer Lada, at his nephew's in the forest lodge. Read...

One can easily understand why the sika deer has frequent white spots scattered everywhere on its skin. Read...

I heard in Siberia, near Lake Baikal, from one citizen about a bear and, I confess, I did not believe it. But he assured me that in the old days, even in a Siberian magazine, this incident was published under the title: "A Man with a Bear Against Wolves."

Fun hunting for foxes with flags! They will go around the fox, recognize her lying down and through the bushes for a mile or two around the sleeping one they will hang a rope with red flags. The fox is very afraid of colored flags and the smell of calico, frightened, looking for a way out of the terrible circle. Read...

I got a speck in my eye. While I was taking it out, a speck still got into the other eye. Read...

In the afternoon, the hot rays of the sun began to melt the snow. Two days will pass, many three, and spring will buzz. At noon, the sun is so steamy that all the snow around our camper is covered with some kind of black dust. Read...

Stories and novels by Mikhail Prishvin are intended for readers of all ages. A huge number of stories can be read even in kindergarten. At the same time, children are imbued with the secrets of nature, respect for it and its inhabitants is brought up. Other works are studied even at school. And for adults, Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin left his legacy: his diaries and memoirs are distinguished by a very detailed narrative and description of the environment in the difficult twenties and thirties. They are of interest to teachers, local historians, lovers of memories and historians, geographers and even hunters.

Small, but very informative stories by Mikhail Prishvin vividly convey to us what we so rarely encounter today. The beauty and life of nature, deaf unfamiliar places - all this today is so far from dusty and noisy megacities. Maybe many of us would be glad to immediately go to little trip through the forest, but it will not work. Then we will open the book of Prishvin's stories and we will be transported to distant and desirable places to the heart.

Stories about nature in the form of short notes, introduce the surrounding world of plants and animals, the life of the forest and seasonal natural phenomena observed in different time of the year.

Small sketches of each season convey the mood of nature in small works written by the creators of Russian prose. Small stories, sketches and notes are collected on the pages of our website in a small collection short stories about nature for children and schoolchildren.

Nature in short stories by M. M. Prishvin

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin is an unsurpassed master of the short genre, in his notes he so subtly describes nature in just two or three sentences. Short stories by M. M. Prishvin are sketches about nature, observations of plants and animals, short essays on the life of the forest at different times of the year. From the book "The Seasons" (selected sketches):

Nature in short stories by K. D. Ushinsky

Pedagogical experience, ideas, quotes, which became the basis in the education of a person, were conveyed in his works by Ushinsky Konstantin Dmitrievich. His fairy tales about nature convey the limitless possibilities of the native word, are filled with patriotic feelings for native land, teach good and careful attitude to the environment and nature.

Stories about plants and animals

Tales of the Seasons

Nature in short stories by K. G. Paustovsky

An incredible description of nature in its various manifestations, using all the richness of the dictionary of the Russian language, can be found in the short stories of Paustovsky Konstantin Georgievich. In surprisingly light and accessible lines, the author's prose, like the composer's music, comes to life in stories for a brief moment, transferring the reader to the living world of Russian nature.

Nature in short stories by A. N. Tumbasov

Anatoly Nikolaevich Tumbasov's sketches about nature are small essays of each season. Together with the author, take your little trip to wonderful world nature.

Seasons in the stories of Russian writers

Short stories of Russian writers, the lines of which are inseparably united by a feeling of love for native nature.

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Retelling a story requires not only memorization of the text, but also thoughtfulness in words, in the content of the story.

Interesting stories about forest animals, stories about birds, stories about the seasons. Fascinating forest stories for middle school children.

Mikhail Prishvin

FOREST DOCTOR

We wandered in the spring in the forest and observed the life of hollow birds: woodpeckers, owls. Suddenly, in the direction where we had previously planned an interesting tree, we heard the sound of a saw. It was, we were told, cutting firewood from deadwood for a glass factory. We were afraid for our tree, hurried to the sound of the saw, but it was too late: our aspen was lying, and around its stump there were many empty fir cones. The woodpecker peeled all this over the long winter, collected it, wore it on this aspen, laid it between two bitches of his workshop and hollowed it out. Near the stump, on our cut aspen, two boys were only engaged in sawing the forest.

- Oh, you pranksters! - we said and pointed them to the cut aspen. - You were ordered dead trees, and what did you do?

“The woodpecker made holes,” the guys answered. - We looked and, of course, sawed off. It will still disappear.

We carved this piece as a wonderful exhibit for the museum.

“You see,” we said to the guys, “the woodpecker is a forest doctor, he saved the aspen, and it would live and live, and you cut it off.

The boys marveled.

Mikhail Prishvin.

SQUIRREL MEMORY

What a miracle You can't think that she could smell a nut through a thick layer of snow and ice. So, since the fall, she remembered her nuts and the exact distance between them.

But the most amazing thing is that she could not measure centimeters, as we do, but directly by eye with accuracy determined, dived and pulled out. Well, how could one not envy the squirrel's memory and ingenuity!

Georgy Skrebitsky

FOREST VOICE

Sunny day at the very beginning of summer. I wander not far from home, in a birch copse. Everything around seems to be bathed, splashing in golden waves of heat and light. Birch branches flow above me. The leaves on them seem either emerald green or completely golden. And below, under the birches, on the grass, too, like waves, light bluish shadows run and stream. And bright bunnies, like the reflections of the sun in the water, run one after another along the grass, along the path.

The sun is both in the sky and on the ground... And it becomes so good, so fun that you want to run away somewhere far away, to where the trunks of young birch trees sparkle with their dazzling whiteness.

And suddenly, from this sunny distance, I heard a familiar forest voice: "Ku-ku, ku-ku!"

Cuckoo! I've heard it many times before, but I've never even seen it in a picture. What is she like? For some reason, she seemed to me plump, big-headed, like an owl. But maybe she's not like that at all? I'll run and take a look.

Alas, it turned out to be far from easy. I - to her voice. And she will be silent, and here again: “Ku-ku, ku-ku”, but in a completely different place.

How to see it? I stopped in thought. Maybe she's playing hide-and-seek with me? She hides, and I'm looking. And let's play the other way around: now I'll hide, and you look.

I climbed into a hazel bush and also cuckooed once, twice. The cuckoo fell silent, maybe looking for me? I sit silently and I, even my heart is pounding with excitement. And suddenly somewhere nearby: "Ku-ku, ku-ku!"

I am silent: look better, don't shout at the whole forest.

And she is already very close: "Ku-ku, ku-ku!"

I look: some kind of bird flies through the clearing, the tail is long, it is gray itself, only the breast is covered with dark spots. Probably a hawk. This one in our yard hunts for sparrows. He flew up to a neighboring tree, sat down on a branch, bent down and shouted: "Ku-ku, ku-ku!"

Cuckoo! That's it! So, she is not like an owl, but like a hawk.

I will cuckoo her from the bush in response! With a fright, she almost fell off the tree, immediately rushed down from the branch, sniffing somewhere in the thicket, only I saw her.

But I don't need to see her anymore. Here is what I figured out forest riddle, and besides, for the first time he himself spoke to the bird in its native language.

So the sonorous forest voice of the cuckoo revealed to me the first secret of the forest. And since then, for half a century now, I have been wandering in winter and summer along deaf, untrodden paths and discovering more and more new secrets. And there is no end to these winding paths, and there is no end to the secrets of native nature.

Konstantin Ushinsky

FOUR WISHES

Vitya rode on a sledge from an icy mountain and skated on a frozen river, ran home ruddy, cheerful and said to his father:

How fun in winter! I wish it was all winter!

“Write down your wish in my pocket book,” said the father.

Mitya wrote.

Spring came. Mitya ran plenty of colorful butterflies across the green meadow, picked flowers, ran to his father and said:

What a beauty this spring is! I wish it were all spring.

Father again took out a book and ordered Mitya to write down his wish.

It's summer. Mitya and his father went to haymaking. The boy had fun all day long: he fished, picked berries, tumbled in fragrant hay, and in the evening he said to his father:

"I've had a lot of fun today!" I wish there was no end to summer!

And this desire of Mitya was written down in the same book.

Autumn has come. In the garden they picked fruits - ruddy apples and yellow pears. Mitya was delighted and said to his father:

Autumn is the best of all seasons!

Then the father took out his notebook and showed the boy that he said the same thing about spring, and about winter, and about summer.

Vera Chaplin

WINGED ALARM CLOCK

Serezha is happy. He moved with his mom and dad to new house. Now they have a two-room apartment. One room with a balcony, parents settled in it, and Seryozha in the other.

Seryozha was upset that there was no balcony in the room where he would live.

“Nothing,” Dad said. - But we will make a bird feeder, and you will feed them in the winter.

“So only sparrows will fly,” Seryozha objected with displeasure. - The guys say they are harmful, and they shoot them with slingshots.

- Don't repeat stupid things! the father got angry. - Sparrows are useful in the city. They feed their chicks with caterpillars, and hatch chicks two or three times during the summer. See how useful they are. The one who shoots birds from slingshots will never be a real hunter.

Seryozha was silent. He didn't want to say that he, too, shot birds with a slingshot. And he really wanted to be a hunter, and be sure to be like dad. Just shoot accurately and just recognize everything in the footsteps.

Dad fulfilled his promise, and on the first day off they set to work. Seryozha gave nails, planks, and dad planed and knocked them together.

When the work was completed, dad took the feeder and nailed it under the very window. He did this on purpose so that in winter he could pour food for the birds through the window. Mom praised their work, but there’s nothing to say about Seryozha: now he himself liked his father’s idea.

— Dad, will we start feeding the birds soon? he asked when everything was ready. Because winter hasn't come yet.

Why wait for winter? Dad replied. - Now let's start. You think how you poured food, so all the sparrows will flock to peck it! No, brother, you need to teach them first. Although the sparrow lives near a person, the bird is cautious.

And rightly so, as dad said, so it happened. Every morning Seryozha poured various crumbs, grains into the feeders, and the sparrows did not even fly close to her. They sat at a distance, on a large poplar tree, and sat on it.

Seryozha was very upset. He really thought that, as soon as he poured the food, the sparrows would immediately flock to the window.

“Nothing,” his dad consoled him. “They will see that no one offends them, and they will stop being afraid. Just don't hang around the window.

Seryozha carried out all the advice of his father exactly. And soon he began to notice that every day the birds became bolder and bolder. Now they were already sitting on the nearby branches of the poplar, then they completely took courage and began to flock to the table.

And how carefully they did it! They will fly by once or twice, they will see that there is no danger, they will grab a piece of bread and soon fly off with it to a secluded place. They peck there slowly so that no one takes it away, and again they fly to the feeder.

While it was autumn, Seryozha fed the sparrows with bread, but when winter came, he began to give them more grain. Because the bread quickly froze, the sparrows did not have time to peck it and remained hungry.

Seryozha was very sorry for the sparrows, especially when they began very coldy. The poor fellows sat disheveled, motionless, tucking their frozen paws under them, and patiently waiting for a treat.

But how happy they were for Seryozha! As soon as he went to the window, they, chirping loudly, flocked from all sides and hurried to have breakfast as soon as possible. On frosty days, Seryozha fed his feathered friends several times. After all, it is easier for a well-fed bird to endure the cold.

At first, only sparrows flew to Seryozha's feeder, but one day he noticed a titmouse among them. Apparently, the winter cold also drove her here. And when the titmouse saw that it was possible to profit here, she began to fly in every day.

Seryozha was glad that the new guest was so willing to visit his dining room. He read somewhere that tits love lard. He took out a piece, and so that the sparrows would not drag it away, he hung it on a thread, as dad taught.

Titmouse instantly guessed that this treat was in store for her. She immediately clung to the fat with her paws, pecks, and she herself, as if on a swing, swings. Long pecked. It is immediately clear that this delicacy was to her taste.

Seryozha fed his birds always in the morning and always at the same time. As soon as the alarm clock rings, he gets up and pours food into the feeder.

The sparrows were already waiting for this time, but the titmouse was especially waiting. She appeared out of nowhere and boldly sat down on the table. In addition, the bird turned out to be very savvy. It was she who first figured out that if Seryozha's window banged in the morning, we must hurry to breakfast. Moreover, she never made a mistake and, if the window of the neighbors knocked, she did not fly.

But this was not the only thing that distinguished the quick-witted bird. Once it happened that the alarm clock went bad. No one knew that he had gone bad. Even my mother didn't know. She could oversleep and be late for work, if not for the titmouse.

A bird flew in to have breakfast, sees - no one opens the window, no one pours food. She jumped with sparrows on an empty table, jumped and began to knock on the glass with her beak: “Let's, they say, eat soon!” Yes, she knocked so hard that Seryozha woke up. I woke up and could not understand why the titmouse was knocking on the window. Then I thought - she must be hungry and asks for food.

Got up. He poured food for the birds, looks, and the hands on the wall clock are already showing almost nine. Then Seryozha woke up his mother, father and quickly ran to school.

From that time on, the titmouse got into the habit of knocking on his window every morning. And knocked something like - exactly at eight. It was as if I could guess the time by the clock!

Sometimes, as soon as she tapped her beak, Seryozha would rather jump out of bed - he was in a hurry to get dressed. Still, after all, until then it will be knocking until you give it food. Mom - and she laughed:

- Look, the alarm clock has arrived!

And dad said:

- Well done, son! You will not find such an alarm clock in any store. It turns out you've been hard at work.

All winter the titmouse woke Seryozha, and when spring came, she flew into the forest. After all, there, in the forest, tits build nests and hatch chicks. Probably, Seryozha the titmouse also flew to breed chicks. And by the fall, when they are adults, he will again return to Seryozha's feeding trough, yes, perhaps not alone, but with the whole family, and again will wake him up in the morning for school.

Why do bird cherry buds come out with sharp peaks? It seems to me that the bird cherry slept in the winter and in a dream, remembering how they broke it, she repeated to herself: “Do not forget how people broke me last spring, do not forgive!”

Now in the spring even some kind of bird keeps repeating everything in its own way, everything reminds it: “Don't forget. Don't forgive!"

That's why maybe waking up from hibernation, bird cherry got down to business and lashed out, and blasted millions of evil peaks at people. The peaks have turned green after yesterday's rain.

“Piki-piks,” the cute bird warned people.

But the white peaks, turning green, gradually became higher and more blunt. Further, we already know from the past how bird cherry buds will come out of them, and fragrant flowers will come out of buds.

Mikhail Prishvin "Wagtail"

(abbreviated)

Every day we waited for our beloved herald of spring, the wagtail, and finally she flew in and sat on the oak and sat for a long time, and I realized that this was our wagtail, that she would live somewhere here ...

Here is our starling, when it flew in, it dived right into its hollow and sang; our wagtail came running to us under the car.

Our young dog Swat began to adjust, how to deceive her and grab her.

With a front black tie, in a light gray, perfectly stretched dress, lively, mocking, she passed under the very nose of the Matchmaker, pretending not to notice him at all ... She knows the nature of a dog very well and is prepared for an attack. She flies just a few steps away.

Then he, aiming at her, freezes again. And the wagtail looks straight at him, sways on its thin springy legs and just doesn't laugh aloud...

It was even more amusing to look at this bird, always cheerful, always efficient, when the snow began to slide from the sandy ravine above the river. For some reason, the wagtail was running along the sand near the water itself. He will run and write a line in the sand with his thin paws. He runs back, and the line, you see, is already under water. Then a new line is written, and so almost continuously all day: the water comes and buries what was written. It is difficult to know what kind of spider bugs our wagtail caught.

Mikhail Prishvin "Crystal Day"

There is a crystal day in the initial autumn. Here he is now.

Silence! Not a single leaf moves above, and only below, in an inaudible draft, a dry leaf trembles on the cobweb. In this crystal silence, the trees, and the old stumps, and the dry-resistant monsters withdrew into themselves, and they were not there, but when I went out into the clearing, they noticed me and came out of their stupor.

Mikhail Prishvin "Spider Captain"

Even in the evening, under the moon, fog rose between the birches. I wake up early, with the first rays, and see how they fight to penetrate the ravine through the fog.

The fog is thinner and thinner, lighter and lighter, and now I see: a spider on a birch is hurrying, hurrying and descending from height to depth. Here he fixed his web and began to wait for something.

When the sun lifted the fog, the wind blew along the ravine, tore off the cobweb, and it, curling up, rushed. On a tiny leaf attached to a web, the spider sat like the captain of his ship, and he probably knew where and why he should fly.

Mikhail Prishvin "Unseen Mushrooms"

duet North wind, hands get cold in the air. And the mushrooms are still growing: mushrooms, boletus, mushrooms, occasionally white ones still come across.

Oh, and a fly agaric caught yesterday. He is dark red himself, and he pulled down white pantaloons from under the hat down along the leg, and even with folds. A pretty little wave sits next to him, all picked up, her lips rounded, licking her lips, wet and smart ...

The frost has been enough, but it is dripping from the sky from somewhere. On the water, large drops become bubbles and float along with the fleeing mists down the river.

Mikhail Prishvin "The Beginning of Autumn"

Today, at dawn, one lush birch stepped out of the forest into a clearing, as if in a crinoline, and another, timid, thin, dropped leaf after leaf onto a dark Christmas tree. Following this, as more and more dawn dawned, different trees I began to see differently. This always happens at the beginning of autumn, when, after a lush and common summer, big change and the trees all begin to experience leaf fall in different ways.

I looked around me. Here is a tussock, combed by the paws of black grouse. Previously, it used to happen that in the hole of such a tussock you would certainly find a feather of a black grouse or a capercaillie, and if it is pockmarked, then you know that the female was digging, if black - a rooster. Now, in the pits of combed tussocks, there are not bird feathers, but fallen yellow leaves. And then here is an old, old russula, huge, like a plate, all red, and the edges were wrapped up from old age, and water was poured into this dish, and a yellow birch leaf floats in the dish.

Mikhail Prishvin "Parachute"

In such silence, when grasshoppers sang in their own ears without grasshoppers in the grass, a yellow leaf slowly flew down from a birch tree covered with tall fir trees. He flew off in such silence when even an aspen leaf did not move. It seemed that the movement of the leaf attracted the attention of everyone, and everyone ate, birch and pine trees with all the leaves, knots, needles, and even bushes, even the grass under the bushes were amazed and asked: “How could a leaf move and move in such silence?” And, in obedience to the general request to find out if the leaf moved by itself, I went to him and found out. No, the leaf did not move by itself: it was the spider, wanting to descend, weighed it down and made it its own parachute: a small spider descended on this leaf.

Mikhail Prishvin "The First Frost"

The night passed under a large clear moon, and by morning the first frost had fallen. Everything was gray, but the puddles did not freeze. When the sun came up and warmed up, the trees and grasses were covered with such strong dew, the fir branches looked out from the dark forest with such luminous patterns that the diamonds of all our land would not be enough for this decoration.

Especially good was the queen sparkling from top to bottom - pine. Joy jumped in my chest like a young dog.

Mikhail Prishvin "Late Autumn"

Autumn lasts like a narrow path with steep turns. Then frost, then rain, and suddenly snow, like in winter, a white blizzard with a howl, and again the sun, again warm and green. In the distance, at the very end, there is a birch tree with golden leaves: as if frozen, it remained, and the wind can no longer rip off the last leaves from it - everything that could be torn off.

The most late fall- this is when the mountain ash wrinkles from frost and becomes, as they say, "sweet". At this time, the latest autumn converges so closely with the earliest spring that you can only recognize the difference between autumn and spring days by yourself - in the fall you think: “I’ll survive this winter and rejoice at another spring.”

Mikhail Prishvin "Living drops"

It snowed a lot yesterday. And it melted a little, but the large drops of yesterday froze, and today it’s not cold, but it’s not melting either, and the drops hang as if alive, they shine, and the sky is gray in weight - it’s about to fly ...

I was wrong: the drops on the balcony are alive!

Mikhail Prishvin "In the city"

What is drizzling from above and the abyss in the air - you no longer pay attention to that. Water trembling in electric light, and shadows on it: a man walks on the other side, and his shadow is here: the head passes along the water trembling.

During the night, thank God, good snow fell, from the window in the morning darkness by the light of the lanterns you can see how the janitors from the shovels gloriously pour snow, which means it’s not wet yet.

Yesterday, in the middle of the day, the puddles began to freeze slightly, black ice began, and Muscovites began to fall.

Mikhail Prishvin "Life is immortal"

The time has come: the frost has ceased to be afraid of the warm sky, covered with heavy gray clouds. This evening I stood over a cold river and understood in my heart that everything in nature was over, that, perhaps, in accordance with the frost, snow would fall to the earth from the sky. It seemed that the last breath was leaving the earth.

By evening it was getting colder over the river and gradually everything disappeared into darkness. Only the cold river remained, and alder cones in the sky, the very ones that remain hanging on bare branches all winter. The frost at dawn lasted a long time.

The streams from the wheels of the car turned into a transparent crust of ice with oak leaves frozen into it, the bushes by the road turned white, like a blooming The Cherry Orchard. The frost stayed that way until the sun overcame.

Then he received support and grew stronger, and everything on earth became blue, as in the sky.

How quickly time flies. How long ago did I make this gate in the fence, and now the spider has tied the upper ends of the grate with cobwebs in many rows, and the frost has altered the cobweb sieve into white lace.

Everywhere in the forest is this news: every mesh of the web has become lacy. The ants fell asleep, the anthill froze over, and it was covered with yellow leaves.

For some reason, the last leaves on the birch gather at the top of the head, like the last hair of a bald man. And the whole white birch that has flown around stands like a red panicle. These last leaves, it happens, remain as a sign that those leaves that have fallen have not fallen off without reason and will rise again in a new spring.

Mikhail Prishvin "My Motherland"

(From childhood memories)

My mother got up early, before the sun. Once I also got up before the sun ... Mother treated me to tea with milk. The milk was boiled in clay pot and from above it was always covered with a ruddy foam, and under this foam it was unusually tasty, and tea from it became excellent.

This treat decided my life in good side: I started getting up before the sun to drink delicious tea with my mother. Little by little, I got so used to this morning rising that I could no longer sleep through the sunrise.

Then I got up early in the city, and now I always write early, when the whole animal and vegetable world awakens and also begins to work in its own way.

And often, often I think: what if we rose like this for our work with the sun! How much health, joy, life and happiness would then come to people!

After tea I went hunting...

My hunting was then and now - in the finds. It was necessary to find in nature something that I had not yet seen, and maybe no one else had ever met with this in their life ...

My young friends! We are the masters of our nature, and for us it is the pantry of the sun with the great treasures of life. Not only can these treasures be protected, they must be opened and shown.

Needed for fish pure water Let's protect our waters. There are various valuable animals in the forests, steppes, mountains - we will protect our forests, steppes, mountains.

Fish - water, bird - air, beast - forest, steppe, mountains. And a man needs a home. And to protect nature means to protect the homeland.