In late autumn, birds flew to the edge of the forest. It's time for them to go to warmer climes. For seven days they gathered, calling out to each other:
- Is everyone here? Is everything here? Everything or not?
All the birds were there, but the capercaillie was missing. The golden eagle tapped the dry branch with its humped nose, tapped again and ordered the young grouse to call the wood grouse.
The grouse rustled its wings and flew into the thicket of the forest. She sees a wood grouse sitting on a cedar tree, shelling nuts from its cones.
- Dear wood grouse! We all want to go to warmer climes.
We've been waiting for you alone for seven days now.
- Well, well, don’t chat in vain! There is no rush to fly to warm countries. Look how many nuts are left here! Do you really have to give up all this?!
The grouse returned to the edge of the forest.
“The capercaillie,” she says, “eats pine nuts and is not going to fly away.”
Then the golden eagle sent a fast hawk. A hawk circled over a large cedar. And the capercaillie sits there, creaking with its beak, picking nuts from the cones.
“Hey, wood grouse!” says the hawk. - The birds have been waiting for you for fourteen days! It's time to fly to warmer climes!
“There’s no need to rush,” the wood grouse answers. - We'll still have time! You need to eat properly before going on the road.
The hawk returned to the birds and told them that the wood grouse was in no hurry to fly to warm lands.
The golden eagle got angry and flew ahead of all the birds to warmer lands. And the capercaillie sat on the cedar tree for seven more days and picked nuts. On the eighth day he finished eating and began to clean his beak and feathers.
- No, apparently I don’t have the strength to eat all the nuts. We'll have to leave it to the squirrels.
- And flew to the edge of the forest. What's happened? At the edge of the cedars, the needles have fallen off, the branches are waving with bare twigs. These are birds that have been waiting for the capercaillie for two weeks and have eaten all the needles. The tree trunks stand white, as if covered with snow. These are birds, waiting for the capercaillie, cleaning their feathers on the trunks. The wood grouse cried bitterly:
“Of all the birds, I’m the only one left in the forest!” How can I spend the winter alone?
The wood grouse's eyebrows turned red from tears.
Since then, all his children, grandchildren and nephews, listening to this story, cry bitterly. That’s why all wood grouse have red eyebrows like rowan berries.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru