Gray herons are not an uncommon guest on my blog, which is because they have been reappearing in our cities in recent years – you just see them more often. I can’t say exactly what it is, but there’s something about these animals: while they look very graceful and beautiful profile, they look a bit dumb and weird from the front. This fellow here wasn’t shy, but kept his distance when I got too close to him.
After my heart attack in January, I had to slow down and load up less. Instead of being stuck in front of the screen, I went out with the camera and was outside for several hours almost every day and that’s what my body needed. The animals seemed to sense that I was no longer so hectic, so charged, and they remained so. Some of the most beautiful pictures were taken because the subject I was photographing found me just as interesting as I did. Impatience and lack of time are the death of good photos, as I have now…
I really dig those little critters and I am happy that they become common guest in our gardens and parks. Don’t know if it was me, neglecting my surrounding when I was younger… but no!… they seem to invade the city en masse, lately. Spent 20 minutes with this one that was very busy jumping around, collecting nuts at Schlosspark/Bürgel. Sadly the light is vanishing quite early already and so there is not much time after work. These fotos were shot on highes ISO and they turned out to be soooooo noisy that I would have kicked them in the…
As common on islands you get a fair bit of wind and storms. The last three days have been up to “Orkanböen” (hurricane), hence wind up to 10-12 Beaufort at times. Sun and rain kept coming and going in the usual 5 minute turns and I had a hard time to keep my lens out of wind direction, as it blew up a lot of sand which acted as flying sandpaper. Animals are used to be outside the whole time and can deal with harsh conditions better then we humans do, although the cormorants don’t seem to be happy about…
… so the oystercatcher is called here in Denmark, which literarily translate to beach magpie. Indeed it’s black an white feathers provoke similar names in other countries. In Germany it fun name is “Halligstroch”. Once again the similarities to an ostrich are bound to its black and white appearance and its storming around in the mud.I had to find a spot where I could approach them better and faster than in the muddy wadden sea. Luckily Rømø is connected to the mainland via a huge dam that even has a bicycle path. I rode out there and along the dam…
Wikipedia states that they are an endangered species, although noting that they tend to show up in large flocks of ten thousand birds a more in the wadden sea. Here on Rømø they do appear along the shallow shores of the madden sea quite frequently. Took me few hours and dirty cloth to get near enough to get some decent pictures. There is nothing to hide when water is gone and the flat, muddy ground with its inhabitants that are used to spent half a day under water and the next in the wet mud. When I was farest from…
A field cricket! You hear them, but you rarely see them, as they tend to hear you first and stop making the chrirping sound when you get near. For me they are the messengers of summer and sun. This fellow was crossing the street on which I was riding my bike and was kind of stunned when I parked sprawled on the ground a few meters away. After it got it self together it turned quickly and rand away from me, but I was quicker and so we spent a couple of minutes till I finally managed to get it…
Not much time left for the fine things in live when you gotta job to do. Yesterday I rushed home, grabbed my camera, hopped on my bike and got to the Carl Ulrich Brücke where I got a flat tire. Walking from here, only left me with one hour for getting to the renatured grounds on the Fechenheim side – not much, but it turned out to be worthwhile. I already could hear this buzzard scream, while I was climbing down the steep steps at the bridge. A few meters away there was a tiny path leading to another billabong…
We fell in love, right the first time we went to the Netherlands about 20 years ago. The people unpretentious and just great, the landscape is nordic flat though changeable and along all those white sandy beaches on the southern part… I guess we will have to get there when we retire. For autumn of 2021 we did not go to the beach, but to Everstoot with its absolutely stunning natural park Mariapeel nearby. The wind beaten rustic trees, tall grass and spectacular weather… Mariapeel is a pearl and I will have to come back. Those images were all shot…
I must have been around 4 or five years old. It was summer and I was sitting with my granny in the garden watching the butterlies. I always wanted to catch one and this very day I managed it. It was sitting on a flower, wings closed above is head an I just walked up to it and crabbed it with two fingers. So happy that I ran up to my granny showing it to her. The next thing I noticed was a strange power on my fingertips. It had the the same colours as the the wings of the…
Beauty shot of a Canadian goose – not quite a duck face, 🙂 I like them much better than the Egyptian goose that flood our seas and rivers over the last years. Wonder if this is due to the fact that they are loud an pushy, tend to embark on the other water birds and are loud, where as its Canadian counterpart is gentle and seldom aggressive, though losing its habitat to the “stronger” fellows. This is a problem I am still struggling with my own kids: Shall I raise them to be reserved, generous and helpful in any way…
This gibbon is part of a family living Zürich zoo. Love to watch them swing through their territory – soooo fast and with such ease – just elegant. They are monogam and defend their territory against threats, which renders them one of the big loser species that really suffer under the vanishing rain forest.
I find those to be very sociable, funny birds. Always in groups and never alone, they march over fields and meadows in order to find insects. In Bieber the field was mowed and between the cutoff excess the starlings were jumping around, hunting the insects that were not fast enough to find shelter. Happy yummy yum.
One thing I like about being out and capturing the animals around me is the fact that you look more closely to animals that are very common, e.g. ducks. They can be seen on any bit of water around here, no matter if in the center of the city or in a remote river hidden in the woods. Especially the male ones are very nice to look at with quite some color palette on their feather dress. Here are a some shots showing how this drake prepares itself and later starts to orchestrate….
The name is actually not that strange as it seems. Take a close look at its face. It’s got the expression and shape that resembles a lions face although not the eyes – the mane does the rest. Like those little critters! Shot through thick glass at the Zürich Zoo so images are not particular sharp. As all the sorts of lion tamarins their population is constantly decreasing due to Barzil clearing off their rainforest.
A short trip to visit my oldest and one of my dearest friends Alex in Zürich, Switzerland. The last time we met with our families was five years ago so it was about time for an overdue visit. The kids hit it off emidiately although Josh und Juliette can’t recall the last time they met. Sunday was time for the Zoo in Zürich. A Wonderfull park and so huge that we only saw about two thirds of it. Not much time for planning pictures and waiting for photogenic poses when you go with the kids and friends, but I got…
Wagtails are very common around here. Wherever there is water and some bushes you will most likely find one of them, patrolling the shoreline, jumping into the air, flapping and catching insects. Overcast and a little windy, plus the tendency to wiggle and wobble through the air made these shots a challenge. Focus was slow, so was my reaction and I would have needed more focal length to get closer.
Goose as a race seem to be very vehement when it comes to guarding there territory. As soon as other goose appear far at the sky, they start shouting and threatening the new arrivals. Especially the Egyptian goose seems to have this habit. As there is only so much space on smaller lakes the confrontation is unavoidable and only a question of time. Here are two pairs colliding at the ruin of Mühle Renigishausen. Beavers seem to have build a dam and flooded the forrest behind. A really nice spot, but mostly in the shadows.
From time to time I just have to shoot the moon. As much as I love the song by Mando Diao I do love the moon itself. Still unbelievable that humans have already been there. Fun fact: According to the Lunar Society I do own a claim up there, about the size of two soccer fields. Well… unlikely that I will be up there any time soon. Till than the pictures will have to last.
If there’s water, there will be life! In the last couple of years a lot of renaturing efforts have been made around Offenbach. The Hainbach has been “renaturiert”, hence they broke up the sleek and straight riverbed and generated sidearms that will overflow when enough water is present. This generates new sanctuaries for flora and fauna and animals like beavers are coming back. Same was done in a larger scale at river Main. New sidearms have been created. While it still looks a little bald around the new formed ponds, life seems to get there quickly. Felled trees with clear…
…once more. The more time I spent in the woods, the more of these funny birds I find – or at least their laughing sound can be heard everywhere. This was not so shy at all although he spottet me first and flew off a few meters. Sneaking up and moving very slowly he did not mind me anymore for a couple of seconds.
Rainy day and not much light. Usually not a day for good pictures, so I went out to the Gradierbau and sat in one of the beach chairs reading a book. Blackbird started yelling his alarm signal as two magpies came close to their nest. It even went after it and started attacking one magpie. I was in no good position to get a good shot, but the action is captured with distracting backdrop, high ISO grain and too high position…. next time I get myself out in the rain and down on the ground.
Just like the changeable weather, which overwhelms you with new moods every minute, it is just as wild and unsteady with the geese. There’s a bang every few minutes. They scold and threaten each other, flap their wings and chase each other across the lake. The graylag geese are naturally outnumbered and so they flew away to have their peace. Don’t know about you, but those grey geese along with its cousins, the domestic goose are the most beautiful and I alway look closely if I can spot Nils and carrot his hamster… 😉
Two weeks ago I took a rest and got a seat in one of the beach chairs around a Gradierbau. Reading on my phone and enjoying the sun that finally made up its mind and came through the clouds, I heard buzzards call a fews times. Suddenly I noticed a huge bird landing in one of the nearby pine trees. I jumped to my camera and turned it on blindly not taking my eyes of the place where the bird landed, approaching it slowly. There it was: a big buzzard, right above a bridge that leads over river Usa and…
Three weeks are over – one more to go. Bad Nauheim is a really neat place. The the vast park(s) and the hills around are all beautiefull and are photogenic, but most impressive features around here are the Gradierbauten. Salty mineral water is pumped from the fountain to the top of those structures and runs down over the stacked up blackthorn branches. Healthy for you lungs and in the early days salt was harvested this way. Here are a view shots from my iPhone.
My rehab sessions are distributed over the whole day leaving me with scattered breaks of a few minutes to a hours each day. Today there was not enough time to go out during noon, so I watched some wildlife photography tutorials on YouTube. Suddenly I had a feeling that someone was watching me and noticed a movement at the edge of my perception. Yes! A sparrowhawk was having a break as well on the nearby clinic roof. I stumbled to the closet and got my cam out, throwing all my neatly hanging cloth off the windowframe that I put there…
This tiny bird can be found nearly everywhere in our hemisphere although spotting one isn’t easy. With its prefect camouflage it repeats the pattern of moss and bark and is almost invisible when not moving. A true master of climbing, it moves quickly up trees an branches hunting for insects. This particular one got a spider with its web out of an old apple tree . There are different subspecies with subtle differences that are hard to tell.
Love these blue jays! They are quite common and besides looking beautiful, they are clever as well. Usually they always show up in pairs or couples and always keep a fair bit of distance between them and us. This one was no exception: As you can see on the pictures, it alway flew off and hid behind some branches peeking back at me, observing what I would do next. I know, these pictures are far off the norm and are no good in terms of classical wildlife photography rules, but I really like the outcome – probably due to me…
This is the second time in my life that I met a kingfisher. The first was about 10 years ago while walking along the Heinbach. Suddenly there was a tiny blue shimmering spot on a brach over the water. Turned out to be one of them and it was gone so quickly that I hardly trusted my vision. Was it really a kingfisher? Whenever I come back to the Heinbach I hope to meet one again and having my camera with me. Truth is, that I almost spent half of the first covid lockdown – almost half a year –…
The nature around Bad Nauheim is really great, especially the Jacobsberg with its “Fallobstwiese am Steinberg” – a classical meadow with apple trees that has been taken over by NABU and made ready for birds and nature to do its thing. During my few days here I visited this spot almost every other day and right at my fist visit I was greeted by two buzzards taking their turns far above my head. Yesterday I heard their call but it took some time till I found both again and they were near the old spot. Explanation to this: they got…
Weather is a changing and it feels like april already. Lots of wind, tons of rain and constant chasing light. I love this, although my lens seems to have some issues since the last rain shower. I looses contact with the camera, resulting in an error. Have to check the bionette which seems to be a little loose. A slight turn and it registers again, but already cost me two shots. Birds don’t seem to care much about the conditions… how could they? Although these blue tit had its bad feather day, after the shower. Kein Drei-Wetter-Taft in sicht. 😉…
A new bird that I saw a while back but had no clue what it was as it was always too far away of me too slow. A Wacholderdrossel as they are called in German. Lucky me met took my chance and went out as soon as the rain stopped for a couple of minutes. The whole family consistent of a couple that is building a nest right across the street of my rehab was very busy in collecting material like grass, sticks and hay. Once new material is dropped into the nest, the whole buddy is used to shape…
First day of my rehab gave me time to explore the woods around Bad Nauheim. Skiwiesen is a lovely spot and next to it the NABU had taken reign over some old “Streuobstwiesen” and the whole spot screams Owls and it is a paradise for most birds. Here are some pictures of robins that showed as much interest in me, as I had in them. Don’t ask me what happened to the one with its beak on the wrong side of its head. Guess it was shaking hard, as it was raining a bit prior to this shot.
Same day on which I had the luck to meet both relatives of the woodpecker family and this fellow was sitting quite low on trunk. Doesn’t it look very stern? Light was not the best so I had to crank up the ISO and used some tools to make those images look nicer. Location: somewhere between Maunzen- and Jacobiweiher.
They are quite a common guest in the woods around here and they are not even hard to track down once you learned about their call; it sound a little bit like a high pitched laughter. The hard part, is to get a decent shot of the green woodpecker. Quite shy, it stays in the upper reaches of the trees, despite hunting for insects on the ground. So it would take patients and time to get this right. I am not at the point where I am ready to spent a day in a hideout and wait for the bird…
This was an early trip to Maunzenweiher mostly due to the time change – summer time, although it is still freezing at night. I sadly missed the dispute between two goose couples. Basically they were fighting for being close to me, as I was having a croissant for breakfast. They had been lamenting and shouting at each other for minutes when finally one took off darting at the other couple. Lots of spray and splash and then they went off the other direction, leaving me with my croissant on the muddy floor and this one shot that depicts one goose…
Taking a longer walk from the Schlosspark Rumpenheim back home this buzzard was waiting on a tree besides the dam. I was on the dam and on the perfect eye level – sadly it was facing the wrong direction and the sun was right behind it. Too late I noticed that is was actually a couple, but having Spike on a leach dragging me away it is wonder that I even captured it. A lot of retouching later…
We got quite used to the grey herons. In the last ten years you can find them around almost every billabong, but the white ones, especially the bigger ones, I did not encounter the frequently. This one was very shy and when I crushed into the scene with my bike and its screeching brakes, it was clear that he had a keen eye on me. Half the way on the ladder to the nearby perch it flew off and left me with at least two nice images. Need to learn how to approach shy animals.
The big advantage of living in a metropolitan area is that you basically are never alone, even in the woods. With the Frankfurt airport nearby and big autobahns like the A3 crossing our region it is even never really silent and so the animals adopt to people and noise and sometimes are not shy at all. I passed this nuthatch on my bike and when I turned and unpacked my camera it was sitting there, just watching me as I was aiming and shooting a it. Truth to be told… this does not happen this often and I spoil and…
Ahhh mating season! Although these shots were from last weeks visit to Maunzenweiher where it was still freezing cold (see the ice the birds sit on?) the first spring feelings among the mandarin ducks were already sensible. There was a lot of pushing, shoving and fighting going on among the colourful drakes. It was almost noon but sun was weak and hanging low, if at all. Most of these shots are retouched and still are far from perfect, but they tell the story.
I’ve been working at the Dögelmühle in Karben for more than twenty years, crossing the Nidda almost every day. It had been a more or less straight channel, with trees and vegetation cut back in order to provide unhindered flow. The effect of this is that you hardly could see any water birds that usually show up such places. Luckily a certain area had been renatured a few years ago and those measures seem to show effect: ducks, coots, swans and cormorants I found. One of the latter was resting in the middle of the stream on a sunken tree…
I never thought about taking pictures of animals at Friedrichsweiher. I have been living close to it for all my life and am well aware of its fauna, but somehow I always believed it is too busy with its playground, screaming kids and dog walkers that shouldn’t be there at all. Yesterday, when the weather picked up for a short time, I went there to shoot the young egyptian goose offspring, I noticed three weeks ago. The youngsters had already grown exceptionally well, although there were only 8 left, of the initial 9. Probably a stray cat or the fox…
Crows are everywhere in Offenbach. They are smart, get quite old and tend to rummage through waste bins. This fellow found a peanut on the ground. No time to observe it any further, as the Spike was running ahead, while the kids were heading in the other direction – photography takes time and patients…
The kids got their school reports and as a tradition we as a family do something special on that day. We went for a nice asian buffet (we ate far too much) and headed for the Frankfurt Zoo. When we arrived, it was raining and only about two hours left before it closed, so not the best signs. The images you see here were all shot with high ISOs and were partly very noisy. I had to push them through a few tools and so they are all heavily altered. The all new enclosure for the penguins is great. All…