A total of five photos to be submitted to Blende2-Hamburg.

Despite the fact that I live in Berlin, with its endless amount of street art, I somehow do not think I will photograph any for this assignment.

As for autumn foliage, I’ll have to wait and see. So far, there is not that much of it around.

But ICM – I have done quite a lot of that, periodically, in recent years, and always find it fun, for a little while, until I don’t, and completely forget about it. But I am always happy when it come up as “homework” in a course.

Below are the results so far (to be continued for another couple of weeks) from which I will have to choose five photos:

Festival of Giant Kites, Tempelhofer Feld, 21 September:

Morning walk at Landwehrkanal/Urbanhafen 24 September:

Visit to Berlin Herbstrummel. Obviously a missing link in my cultural education, although it was a lot like a pre-Christmas fair:

My attempt to make a bundle of “pretty”, pastel-coloured prizes look creepy:

Visit to Tierpark Berlin 7 October:

And finally – an attempt at making a scene look more dramatic – not sure I succeede, plus the odd one out: a multiple-panel with autumn foliage, such as it was, since that was only getting started in Berlin a few days ago:

These are easy and quick – and healthy -, and also great to take with you if you are going to be out and about and with no even remotely healthy food within reach but only those sandwiches made with refined wheat and filled with highly processed meat/cheese/whatever and E-numbers that are being peddled wherever you look when on the move in Berlin.

They can be frozen, too.

Mix 150 g chickpea flour with approx. 4 dl oat milk (or any other plant milk or animal milk, or even water. Start with less and add until you have the desired texture which depends how thin or thick you want your pancakes.

Then add 1 tsp baking soda (natron) and 1 tsp salt, and mix well.

Then add whatever you want as a filling. If you want sweet pancakes, add for example any kind of berry, and some maple syrup.

In this case, I added half a pack of broccoli, from the freezer, chopped; a red onion, finely chopped; two garlic cloves, finely chopped; half a tsp turmeric; a tsp moringa powder; a tsp dried methi leaves; a tsp ajwain seeds, a healthy dose of black pepper, and a pinch of chili flakes, and a tblsp nutritional yeast.

I could also have added for example some fresh herbs and some red bell pepper, or shredded carrot, zucchini, beetroot, ….

Then bake as you would any other pancake.

Here, two were cooled off and went in the rucksack for later, and two were served for breakfast with crumpled feta cheese and thick balsamico.

IN PROGRESS

5 October Moorlinse with VHS

My second (or third?) participation in this VHS birdwatching walk, led by Rob Crouch. I have also walked that route by myself several times, and once with a friend, since I now know it well, and even with my pathetic orientation skills do not have to bother with maps and am not likely to get completely lost. It is a very diverse walk with lakes, fields and forest.

There were not that many birds in Moorlinse when we got there mid-morning, but one great white egret I had not seen there before.

A bit later, while walking further on, we saw many geese arriving and descending towards Moorlinse, reportedly for a rest before continuing their travel south.

We also saw two herons circling (or were they actually storks?):

By the way, there were also some large caterpillars on the paths. Thank you to Agata for styling one of them for a photoshoot :-).

Stopped for a break at Karpfenteiche before proceeding towards Bogensee:

At Bogensee, I was lucky to get some photos of a great white egret. For a moment, I thought it might be the one from Moorlinse escaping from the onslaught of geese, but after the walk, I went back to Moorlinse and saw that egret still there, seemingly unperturbed by the geese.

Below are the kinds of photos I also find interesting, but I have included some pretty landscape photos above since those are what most people seem to like. (“Pretty” is not my kind of thing. I find most of it quite puke-worthy):

Somewhere along the way, we also saw a cow and a buzzard (the latter actually too far away to be photographed with my slightly limited equipment.

And finally, the view over Moorlinse after the walk:

And this youtube video, and this one.

7 October Tierpark Berlin

It may be a bit of a stretch to categorise a visit to Tierpark Berlin as a nature walk, but there are many different trees, bushes, grasses – in addition to the zoo animals. I went there in search of some ICM photos for the Blende2 assignment. Those will be posted in a separate post. Here are some of the more “normal” photos I took:

9 October NABU Spandau Bezirksgruppe – Vogel(stimmen)wanderung am Neunten, at Großer Spektesee

A super enjoyable walk in the most perfect weather.

One on 28 September with VHS Pankow in Freizeitpark Marienfelde, and one on 29 September, found in Umweltkalender, in Britzer Garten.

I am finding it a little bit strange that they would organise the one tomorrow on the day of the – fiftieth! – Berlin Marathon. For anyone living inside the route, not to mention those who live north of Berlin and somehow have to make it across the city, it might be difficult if not impossible to get there, since many bus routes are suspended and many streets blocked off. (And no, I am not complaining about the marathon like so many others – it is a feast, if you ask me, and it is one weekend each year, so either just stay at home or go out and enjoy the spectacle and stop whining).

Anyway, both walks were very pleasant. In Marienfelde, we saw a heron and a largeish flock of long-tailed tits, as well as a buzzard and a kestrel.

In Britzer Garten, we saw five jays at the same time in one tree, several types of woodpecker and tit, and a sparrowhawk. On my way out I saw a bird of prey being escorted to the nearest exit by two crows.

With InterNations photography group, on Tempelhofer Feld

In the end, 13 people were signed up. Three of those actually turned up. I will forever wonder what it is in “please do not sign up unless you plan on attending, and if you do sign up and then discover or decide that you are not going to attend, please cancel”, or similar words to the same effect, it is that people do not understand.

Other InterNations members are wondering why I have so few “Contacts” in my contacts list. Apart from the fact that I don’t care about having contacts in InterNations contact list, another reason is that I block no-showers from being able to contact me directly. Sorry.

Anyway, it was a good day out, the weather was perfect, and the number of visitors must have broken all records.

I have a current course assignment asking for ICM photography, so I tried that out while there. The results are in this separate post.

Here are the (too many – sorry :-)) “normal” photos I took: