Now I'm not one to give speeches and preaching is not for me. But this is something I can't leave without mention.

On tuesday (Nov 6th) we started (especially Mati, who lives in Sõrve and watches out to sea a lot, that is) noticing birds with oil in their plumage. Mostly Long-tailed Ducks and Black Scoters. They were on the shores of little islands. And that's unusual behaviour for birds that are strictly seabirds outside breeding season. They were franticly grooming and the ones that were tired of that effort were sleeping. None of them would ever get any of that oil out. The ones that were on the little islands would later die of exhaustion or cold. The ones that were sleeping the night on the shores of the peninsula got killed by - probably - a fox.

Mati reported the authorities and sure enough the next day there was quite a crowd present. Estonian authorities made a visit to check the situation. The border patrol's aeroplane flew around over the sea searching for the oil - in vein. TV, radio, newspapers - they were all there. But what was there to do but gather the corpses...