Животные, обитающие в степях Калмыкии

The animals of the Kalmyk steppe

The saiga

A saiga is a steppe antelope. Herds of them move up at the speed of 70-80 kilometers per hour. Saigas are extremely hardy. They can survive without water enduring the heat. And they are not capricious at food: they eat grass, lichens, even the wormwood and the poisonous plant. Their body contains a lot of copper and it neutralizes the action of vegetable poisons.

The gopher

A gopher is a short-tailed little rodent. It eats succulent shoots of cereals and grain in autumn. Accumulating the fat the ground squirrel prepares for hibernation. It walls in ground outs. The animal buries in the litter, rolls up in a ball and clutching his head with his paws, falls asleep. But after every ten days he wakes up and is awake for several hours. This time he needed for the normalization of metabolic processes in the body. And then gopher falls asleep again. In spring the animal loves to bask in the sun, standing by a column near the burrow on the surface. The gopher whistles loudly and immediately hides in a hole.

The hamster

A hamster is slightly larger than rats. This is a motley rodent, but a thick, short tail and chubby. It fills its dimensionless cheek pouches with what is growing in the fields: grain, seeds, beans, peas, corn, root vegetables. Waiting for the winter the hamster makes the supplies and stores them in the storerooms of their deep burrows. It hibernates in cold weather. He often wakes up, eats, and falls asleep again. Spring rodent eats green shoots and roots of plants, eating insects and even small voles.

The jerboa

A jerboa is the largest of the gerbils inhabit the steppes and even forest-steppes. The coney is called “the hare” for the long ears, “earth” because it lives in burrows. And its holes are deep, up to three meters! The creature lies there in hibernation, waking up only in the spring. At night, the coney is looking for food, jumping like a kangaroo on its hind legs. It rides fast and is not broken in the dark, because well-versed owing to the sensitive hearing and sensitive whiskers. Its long tail with a big fluffy brush on the end is like a wheel for the jerboa and the balance when jumping.

The heron

A heron Is a large bird. Its narrow head with a large sharp beak, decorated with two long feathers. Herons arrive on nesting in early spring when water is still iced up. It's looking for fish, frogs, lizards, snakes, water rats around the shores and shallows of rivers, lakes and swamps. Noticing the prey the heron grabs it with lightning speed. The nest is built in reeds near the water or high in the trees. The male brings building material, and the female puts it in the form of a loose cone. Eggs incubate in turn. When the chicks fly from the nest, herons flocks wander, choosing the most abundant food reservoirs.

The bustard

A bustard is the largest bird in Russia. It is heavy, but quick in flight. Bustards fly in small flocks or singly to their foraging areas grass and sagebrush steppe. Bustard eats insects and larger food like lizards, frogs, rodents. It eats the young juicy shoots and the seeds as well. In the tall grass the female takes the hatchlings. Bustard is a caring and careful mother. If threatened, the bird pretends to be wounded and limping, runs away - distracts attention from the brood. In autumn, flocks of great bustard with grown chicks are fed in the desert. The great bustard has no oil gland and the feathers are not lubricated with grease. So when there is heavy rain, bustards get wet and can't fly - this is their problem.

The hoopoe

A large crest of long red feathers with black tips is on the head of this medium-sized bird. In the expanded form it is similar to motley fan. It isn’t nessessary to say that the hoopoe is a bright bird of exotic. It spends winters in Africa, India or southern China, and comes back home in our steppes. The hoopoes form a couple once for the whole life. They suit their nests in the hollows of trees or in crevices of rocks, which is used for several years. The female incubates the eggs and the male brings her food. The chicks remain in the nest for about three weeks until fully fledged. All this time the parents feed them. Hoopoes deftly extracted from the earth with long thin beaks and manure, larvae and worms, they eat grasshoppers in the steppes. They eat it all themselves and feed the chicks. The hoopoes don’t eat their prey immediately. First, they deftly toss the insect into the air and catch so that it lay along the beak, and only then swallow.