Anna Yaganova uses her stick to search for mouse storage caches

Anna Yaganova searches the tundra with her stick for underground food caches made by mice and carefully unearths them together with Evdokiia Nesterova.

Using the iron tip of a stick, one probes the tundra grass to detect hollow spaces where mice have created caches of roots. When such a spot is found, the roots are gently removed for personal use. The mice are praised for their hard work, and one offers them a small gift – such as breadcrumbs – placed into the emptied hole as an apology.

Recorded by Erich Kasten. Lesnaya, 2000.