May I introduce: Squik Jr. The weather on Tuesday was terrible. It had been below 20 degrees at night, but during the day the thermometer shot up to 30 degrees Celcius. The Kogel is in the shade, but also right under the roof. In the evening the little one came out and hung on our awning, very exhausted. A pot of water and a piece of cold watermelon from the coolest part of our fridge and some wallnuts helped a little. Mama Squink kept watch and ran excitedly back and forth while the offspring couldn’t keep its eyes open. I hope it survives this summer.
… and other dragonflies. It’s that time of year again when the dragonflies are buzzing and the lakes and water extinguishers are buzzing around. Did you know that this is actually the final stage of their existence. The larvae sometimes spend up to 5 years in the water, hunting and growing, until they pupate and then buzz around as dragonflies for a summer, lay eggs and then die. Beautiful animals. This big blue arrow was quite “shy” at first and I had to stand quietly in front of a stalk in the lake for a good 15 minutes until he came back to me. The mosquito bites on my body still itch today.
It was a bit of a shock when my beloved little pine tree on the balcony suddenly had no branches or leaves; as if someone had simply cut it bare and left only the trunk and a few small shoots at the top. At the time I first blamed Nadine and when she denied it, it was my mother’s turn until a few days later I caught a squirrel biting off the branches right at the trunk and carrying them away. Now our birch tree had to suffer and in return we have half a kogel right above our awning and a cheeky young squirrel that took over the balcony yesterday morning. They are cute… but they are also robbers!
A hot tip from a photographer in one of my Facebook groups (thanks Thomas!) gave me the pleasure of visiting a kestrel nest from relatively close up.At first the nest box was deserted, because the “little ones” are already quite big and are already flying around. The whole family was sitting on the roofs all around. I think I counted 5 animals.
I lay down behind a bush for 20 minutes, opposite the box, and at least two came by. You a see how tense and concentrated the youngsters still are, when flying. The morning would be the right time to take photos there, because then you would have the sun at your back… but you have to work.
Beautiful animals and somehow there is a connection: I’m buying an “e” and would like to fly with it.
Honestly, this is the hardest thing I have tried to photograph so far. Swallows in flight. Small, as fast as an arrow and always hooking. Neither my hardware, or time nor my skills are sufficient. Here are a few “snapshots”, because there is no other way. Keep your eyes on it if you can, hope, pray and push the shuttler. 99% of the output was blurry or the bird was already far out of the picture. To make matters worse, clouds came up and the light faded. I wonder if that would be a case for a light barrier. But how to get this positions over a lake about 10m wide? No, I will need more than 30 Minutes of time and better light and probably a camera that can do more than 6 frames per second.
At least, thanks to the use of some AI tools, you can still see something in the pictures. I think I have a new task. So this is not a quality post rather than a call to action, to do it better next time.
A raven black with clever eyes,
in the neighbor’s garden flies.
There stood a tree so proud and grand,
with cherry fruits in sunlight’s band.
With cunning gaze and swiftest flight,
he took a fruit, a quick delight.
One bite, two bites – sweet and bright,
soon the tree was bare in sight.
This was chatGPT not me!
I swear I can do it better,
if I only had the time to type those kind of letters.
I promised to come up with a pretty post, after those alien insects. 😉
Back on the artificial turf field at BSC where Josh found the head and remains of a stag beetle a week earlier, this time the front part of a large Capricorn beetle was lying. And when I say big, I mean it! Wiki say it reaches up to 55mm length, but this was definitely of a bigger scale. The shocking thing was that he was still alive, even though everything from the wings downward was missing.
I picked him up and he held on tightly to my finger and sat him on the edge of the hockey rink. Let’s be honest: The animal looks like alien queen from Aliens. The next picture will be something nice again… I promise.
There are animals that you only see a few times in your life. My first encounter with a stag beetle was at a tennis tournament when I was probably 14 years old. I hit the ball… at least that’s what I thought, but there was a large stag beetle sitting on the fence, rearranging its limbs in a somewhat disturbed manner. During Corona we discovered one in the forest and then yesterday… he or better she came padding towards me in the middle of the road, because no antlers means it’s a female. The lady wasn’t shy at all and then obediently let me sit her down in the next bush. However, I was so taken aback by the encounter that I once again didn’t adjust the camera correctly. Well… next time, because I hope I see more of these micro-giants.
Father’s Day, oh yeah. I wished I could spend a few hours in the forest with my family, without any appointments. Last fall I discovered a few small pools in the forest and wanted to show them to the children, so we set off with our bikes and picnic basket.
No large animals to be seen and the drowned mandarin duck from two weeks ago had also disappeared. Marie then spotted this dragonfly that was just hatching. We watched her spellbound. A laborious process, but beautiful. After a good 20 minutes she had made it, but had fallen off her blade of grass and was lying on a leaf, like on a platter on her back. She was happy to accept a helping finger. We eyed each other and then set her down in the tussock further down, next to the leaf. Really pleased that my kids had the chance to witness this little wonder…
They are considered dirty, unclean, nasty and carriers of disease, but honestly… can those eyes hide any bad? It’s no secret that almost all animals can perform the “puppy dog look”. This one has brought the whole thing to perfection and lives on Friedrichsweiher, around the corner. No, it is shy, doesn’t beg – unlike all the birds – she zooms into her burrow and waits for old grannies to empty their bread basket there, or for the ravens to empty the garbage cans.
I really like rats and Orco, the rat that lived with me for a few years was very clean and was like a little dog. He – actually a she – came when you called, she was cheeky and funny. Unfortunately, she came out of a lab and got cancer very soon.
I only had an hour, but luckily I was already close to the forest. My senses were not deceiving me and I was near a small hidden clearing in the forest where there are a few water holes – no bigger than garden ponds – that I had discovered last year in autumn. The sun was already low and the fresh, green grass at the edge shone magnificently.
There was a Mandarin duck swimming in one of the lakes and something bright in the water next to it, which at first I thought was a thick birch branch. Looking through the telephoto, I saw that the branch had two strange, very symmetrical little cantilevers…. Wait, those look like bird legs an the feathers fit to a female mandarin duck! And indeed the male seemed to be guarding her.
It turned out that there were two males, but it was the one that kept coming back and was occasionally chased away by the other one. I have no idea what really happened here; probably a case for the bird CSI…. but the light was great and even dead water birds look elegant.
The icy grip of winter is still felt and with temperatures below 5 degrees in the evening, clouds and lots of rain, the whole of spring is slightly delayed. This wasp looked anything but fit when I found it. I placed her in the sparse rays of the sun and soon she was gone. Before that, she posed nicely for me.
Today I put all my obligations and appointments aside and went out into nature. The weather was suboptimal, as they say. It seems like April was a little early this year because it was raining heavily when I stepped outsid. Thanks to great apps, you can look at the cloud bands directly above your location and see when the rain takes a break, but of course that doesn’t save you if you’re in the middle of the forest and it’s pouring.
After the first 500m there was another shower and the idea of limiting the tour to a short lap creeped into my head, but then there was a big boost of motivation: This nice Mr. Buzzard was sitting on the other side of the street, right on the sidewalk. When I discovered him, passers-by came only about two meters past him and I was already cursing inside. They didn’t see him and he noticed that very clearly and stayed. On the other hand, he spotted me straight away, but it was another one of those magical moments where the animal realizes that I meant it no harm and reacted with curiosity rather than fear. I got within 3 meters of him and he posed and eyed me and the thick lens. Thank you, dear Buzzard, for these three minutes. Made my day! This gave me the motivation to continue my trip and I spent four fantastic hours in the forrest.
Down on the Main is the old loading terminal of the former Höchst/Clariant Chemie. The cormorants have taken over it and are drying their feathers high up above the water, in the sun.
It’s nice when old man-made things are conquered by animals and nature.
There are times when photography is easy and beautiful and there are times when the circumstances are anything but good. I have often met my special friend, the krestel, in his hunting grounds on the Fechenheim meadows or on the Bürgel side of the Main. This time I was out quite early and the sun remained in its bed of clouds. With a little software magic, you can still see it easily and yes, it is still winter when the birds prefer to pounce on the flattened menu on the street instead of hunting. 😉
The day started with a headache and body aches and the children weren’t enthusiastic about going outside either – too cold, too grey and too unfit. With little hope of getting something great in front of my lens, I grabbed Spike and the camera and wanted to walk for an hour towards the forest, along the Hainbach. And suddenly he was, flying past me like an colourful arrow and sitting on a branch 30m behind me. I dropped everything, dog leash, gloves, bag and fumbled out the camera as quickly as I could so I could at least take a few pictures before he moved on. The disappointment came at home: ISO 18000. Thanks to a lot of post-processing, it is now “vieawble”. .. at least significantly better than the last attempt. I’m getting closer, yessss!
Since I started wandering through the forest more consciously, I see them often. It used to be something special to see a woodpecker. Is this due to my training, or are there simply more woodpeckers in the forest? He diligently and diligently worked on the branch and got a few delicacies from the bark.
This is what it looks like when the goose cry… not quite Prince like. 😉 Sun! For what felt like an eternity everything was just grey, wet and cold. It was cold today too, but the sun was there. After breakfast, I quickly went to the Friedrichsweiher, sneaked around the corner and looked at how the animals defy the weather. Your Egyptian geese do what they usually do: make noise! Thanks to the low sun and low temperatures, her breath was visible.
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 learned after 17 years, and it is therefore clear why the results are better now than all the years before. On the one hand, I was traveling alone and didn’t have to take anyone into account. No children making noise and running ahead, no partner impatiently waiting for me to take the picture… just me, the animals and the camera. It’s a shame, because my two children are very fond of animals, but they are too impatient to wait long for something.
This deer was no exception. It was preening itself in the evening sunshine and initially didn’t notice me as I approached slowly, but after work I’m usually busy too and so it noticed me quite quickly. A wonderful indicator that I need to spend more time outside to find peace. On the other hand I would love to go on a trip with a likeminded photographer. Always nicer to share adventures.
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 virtual dustbin, but once more Topaz Laps turned them into something to show… at least when you don’t zoom in.
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 heating in the right direction with best lighting. A new step for me as well: I knew that getting on eye level with you subject results in better and intimate pictures, but I barely did – here I had the chance. New lesson learned… you need to get dirty to get better pictures. …and yes, I do need a macro lens for sure.
Fossil findings show they were here about a 100 Mil. years ago and they are still around. They are fast – up to 1,5m/s and they can jump as far as 35cm and that all on the surface of water. You have to be somehow impressed, right?
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 that I never noticed. Bushes flanked both sides, so I had kind of a natural cover. Of course it noticed me first and flew off, screaming all the time. I started to whistle an answer, trying to imitate its call and suddenly it flew right above the small trees, right over my head. This game continued for a couple more rounds and ended, while lady with a huge dog appeared and shied it away.
Guess, I never got that close to a buzzard and it was a really touching experience. While looking through the net, I found a recent article from NABU, saying that buzzards are known to protect their nests against jogger, even attacking them. It was screaming before I got near and so I want to believe that it was calling for its offspring and not shouting at me to get lost.
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 butterfly. My Grandpa walked by and explained to me that the butterfly now has to die, because of my touch. I was devastated and since then I only observe them. This red admiral is probably on his big trip and seemed to be as curious as me. He only flew off when I got to close, circling me and landing again in short distance, observing me.
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 and probably get run over and pushed aside by the rude other ones that just don’t care about others or should I tell them to go bully and grab what they want? Guess the truth is that even if I opt for the latter I couldn’t pull it off as I was raised the polite way. At the moment it seems a little outdated but I hope for the long term effect….
It is so much life around the rivers and meadows. Seems to be a good year for dragonflies – they are everywhere and overall. Here are some pictures of banded demoiselles, minding their business.
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….
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 signs of beaver teeth are present, as well as lots of birds and amphibians as these marsh frogs. The little pond is littered with tadpoles and you can hear the frogs quarks from a far. Shy as they are, they note when you get close. Took me over an hour to figure how to sneak up to them and get some shots, which almost involved me taking off my shoes and shorts and getting into the lake. In the end I managed it through patients, slow tai chi moving and waiting.
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 to come into my viewfinder. All these images here are more or less drive by actions and so this one is shot from below, while it was climbing up a tree and singing… eh.. laughing at me, when on top. 😉
This was taken at the Jacobiweiher.
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 approaching and shouting for the third attack.
Afterwards the couple that was already close to me came by and started shouting and head banging at me. Probably this is how they beg for food – they got none!
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.
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.
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…
Cold and slight sleet showers were not the ideal weather to go for a shoot, but I needed to get some fresh air and went for a walk to a nearby lake called Maunzenweiher. Usually there are a lot of ducks and a few herons around, but this time I even noticed two cormorants. I wrongly took the grey feathered head for a sign of age, but it is just the opposite: this one is young fellow – and although a lot of people were hiking, jogging and walking around the lake, it was again me stopping and pointing a big lens (eye) at it, that made it play hide and seek with me. At some point I got a few decent shots of him sitting and cleaning his feathers, but I missed his flyoff, touching the water with his feet, the first few swings. Crap!
Cormorant was NABU bird of the year 2010. Another German name for it is “Berufsfischer” (professional fisher) and indeed fishermen don’t like them very much. They are good divers and and their main dish is fish. Since a couple of years the population seems to grow again constantly after they were consequently hunted throughout the first half of the last century.
May I introduce you to one of the my beloved bird friends. This is Robin or Rotkehlchen, as they are called here in Germany. They are very common and are all but shy. Quite the opposite: they are very curious and are not afraid of getting close to you. Whenever I come across one of them, if feels like it is rather watching me instead of me watching it.
This little fellow didn’t even move when I approached him with my bike and stayed when I hit the my squeaking brakes and stopped a few meters away from it. He took notice of me, fiddling with my gear and the big lens, was so curious and came closer. In the end, it even sat on my bike, right beside me as it wanted to have a nice chat with me. Love it!
Following Tin Man Lee for quite some time, it was only about two days ago – while bringing the kids to bed – that I read his great guide about taking sharp picture. Immediately I felt the itch to grab my cam and go out hunting again. The next morning after kids where out of house, I dusted off my cam bag and – oh wonder – one batterie was still holding some current. It was about than that I realized it is a good idea to take the batterie out, as the cam drains them, even when not turned on.
With my bike I went for a three ours tour to the nearby Maunzenweiher and the animal “wild” life was quite nice to me. A crane, some exquisite water birds (haven’t checked for the speciss by now) and a great sunrise. Little did I know that Covid would catch up and make me stay at home, the next day for at least a week.
A moon eclipse and a blood red moon are not quite common and so I set my alarm clock and tried to capture it, without much luck. I was to lazy to go downstairs, dress up, risking waking up Marie and my wife, so I went out on the balcony in shorts and T-Shirt, which was a little cold at 4°C. But it wasn’t only me that was shaking… the moon, while being red, not being quite as bright as usual, made me dial down the F-stops and crank up the ISO. The result is far from being crisp, but you get the impression.
A small trip to the Grünen Seen (green lakes) last weeked to catch some fresh air. The sun had dissapeared for… well I don’t know excatly, but it felt like forever…. and now it was out the first day. Till we reached the lake, it already was about to vanish again, but none the less, I caught some swans going after their business in the partly frozen lake. Like the composition and texture of of this, so I share it with you.
Around the Grüne See (green lake) there are alway alot of birds of prey. Usually they are far, up in the sky and if you are lucky and find one on a tree it mostly spots you first and flies off. Not this time. This one turned out to be a very very patient object to shoot. The sund had alrea
There is a saying within my family: When death comes around he will pick three of us. How right that saying is we all got to know when grandpa died last month, being number three after my cousins grandma and Lutzi. Ninetysix years is a big number and he made his peace with the circumstances, knowing that he won’t carry on – but the fact remains: Death just hurts for the rest of us, even if we could say good bye. I hope that you and granny are reunited and have a good time now. R.I.P. grandpa. Picture was taken one and half year ago, when he turned 95 and grandma was gone already. He was so brave and carried on as good as he could, not showing any laxity in his routine and always with humor… just carrying on as life came along. Big rolemodel…
Spiders – hoooh! Scary creatures, but if you take a closer look, they are actually really instresting. They got eight eyes and up to eight legs! Found this tiny nest at my marquee on the balcony. The nest normaly keeps a certain temperature and amount of humidity inside. Lowering the marquee seems to have raptured the hull that gave me this insight. Hopefully they wil make it anyway and keep the mosquitos out of my way.
Egyptian gooses are common place right now. A couple of years they where seldom guests in germany, but due to warm winters and the clima shift in general, they are everywhere to be seen. The bad thing about them is that they drive the old inhabitans of like the normal ducks out off their habitats…. well, where did I hear this already… ahh yes, the squirrels. Same here. World is changing constantly – mostly due to our intermission.
Living in Offenbach has many advantages. One is the “Grüne See” (green lake) is a nature reseve that is just around the corner. While attending it in summer it is hard to find a place for yourself, because everyone seems to be around, winter spring is far better. Big toad was sitting beside the main walkways an was lucky that I did not step on it. Still quite frozen and stiff it gave me the time needed to focus it with my 500er sigma. I already said it and will say it agin… I need a macro lens.
