Category Archives: Activities and hobbies

Activities and hobbies, Out and about

Hamburg and Bremerhaven April

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IN HAMBURG:

This exhibition on surrealist sculpture in Bucerius Kunstforum.

Followed by a walk in the area of the hotel/course which I did not know at all:

Bonus info: I am staying at Leonardo Hotel Hamburg Elbbrücke, purely because of the proximity to where my course on 13 April takes place. Since I have been to Hamburg many times, it is always interesting to get familiarised with different areas of a city, but the problem with this one is the difficulty finding something to eat in the area without having to traipse back to the S-Bahn (either Elbbrücken or Veddel) and travel.

Google will show you several cafés that look good on the internet but my walkabout yesterday revealed (and I don’t mean to sound neither sexist nor racist, but this might bother other old, single women even more than it bothers me) that they are all crammed full of men of a different ethnic origin than German, staring at you as if to say you definitely do not belong there, AND chain-smoking (yes, also in the inside area). I did have a very good cup of coffee on the terrace of one of them, but I was unable to find anywhere where I would imagine having dinner on Sunday night when the restaurant at my hotel will be closed. This poses a bit of a problem since I will need to spend time post-processing the photos taken during the course, rather than travelling around looking for something to eat. My solution in this case: Lieferando.

The view of Elphi (one of the world’s best concert halls, if you ask me) in the early morning of 13 April:

On 13 April: This photography workshop with Blende2 in Alter Industriehafen:

And finally, almost back at my hotel after a great workshop with Blende2-Hamburg, I came across these two pairs of different subspecies of geese. The Nile Geese (left) are supposed to be invasive and territorial and aggressive towards the domestic grey geese, but these were lying down, sunning themselves together (and totally unfazed by the trains roaring past in the background) until I appeared.

IN BREMERHAVEN:

IN PROGRESS

Started with a walk to familiarise myself with the area and enjoy the maritime flair.

Visited Zoo am Meer for some animal portraits and a bit of ICM:

I am calling the below series “The gull and the garbage”, or: how to turn two OK photos and one epic fail into a story:

More photos to come

On day two I spent a lovely morning on (at? in?) Luneplate, a nature protection area especially famous for its birdlife, about 1,5 hours by bus from central Bremerhaven. Lots of reeds, so that will be interesting soon, when the types of birds nesting there arrive, lay their eggs, for the cuckoo to then come and throw some of those eggs out and lay their own eggs there. Also a wetlands area and a viewing tower. And some cows.

Also, I finally got a couple of decent photos of the Chiffchaff/Zilpzalp. In Berlin, I had ever only heard, seen and managed one photograph of it, and in Hamburg I heard it everywhere all the time but did not get a photo. They are tiny and move around all the time. I also got a bad photo of a reed bunting/Rohrammer.

I saw many geese, ducks and egrets far away, and some birds of prey, but did not get any good photos.

The real highlight came when I was waiting for the bus to get back to Bremerhaven. I was watching some swallows whizzing around at breakneck speed without even attempting to photograph them, until one of them suddenly sat on a branch, which made me wonder. They usually stay in the air for months. I still had my camera locked and loaded and in burst mode so aimed it at it, or her, as it would turn out, when this happened:

Thoughts and opinions

So how is that boycott of US goods and services going?

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As far as I am concerned, and judging by what I hear and read from others – the short answer is “slowly”.

It is not like boycotting Russian good and services (I am not aware of availing myself of any Russian goods and services, though I have to admit I am not certain exactly what Germany, where I have chosen to live, currently depends on from Russia).

And as far as Israeli goods and services go, I have always avoided buying foods (such as oranges and lemons) from there, as well as watching Israeli film and TV, so that is a no-brainer too.

The case of USA is different. The easiest part was avoiding buying things like avocadoes and wine from California which a lot of us started already the first time around – “Trump light – boycott light”. Back then, I also vowed not to set foot in that country again – incidentally, round about the time I also decided not to fly again. I slipped up not so long ago and signed up for a photography retreat in Santa Fé – a place that was on my bucket list pre-Trump – but I woke up, thought – what on earth are you doing you unprincipled sloth – and cancelled that. Since then, I am happy to read that the majority of Europeans are no longer travelling to USA if they can avoid it. Many are now choosing Canada as a holiday destination.

Speaking of that photography retreat – it was organised by my favourite photography course provider – US-based. Because hypocrisy rules, I am currently attending one of their courses (using zoom – another US business ….) since I had already paid for it before the European boycott started to pick up speed. But this will be the last one, and I shall miss those courses greatly.

I am currently busy deleting accounts with gurushots, kelbyone, etc. The next hurdle will be the streaming services. As part of weaning myself off Netflix and Amazon, I no longer watch any US produced films or TV series, and am one click away from deleting my Netflix accoung. I don’t like to think about living without Facebook and all the information I will be missing out on, but sooner or later it will have to go. Instagram will be easier since I never liked that media anyway. And I am not even mentioning that third one.

I hope with time there will be non-US alternatives to all the really difficult, to the point of impossible, ones such as google, microsoft, adobe, zoom and I am sure there are many more that I am just taking for granted – viable alternatives so that we never have to revert to the old US ways again.

This time around, loathing and mistrust is irreversible.

By the way, I am a little bit astonished to learn that the concept of boycotting seems unknown in USA. Many Americans I know simply do not seem to understand it, and are taking it all very personally.

Boycotting goods and services from a country is a completely normal thing to do, and one of the few resources ordinary citizens have. And it is not personal.

USA let somebody run for office who should not even be eligible to be a garbage collector, let a long President, and that person is now doing what he had always said he would be doing and they still voted for him. Now he is planning on handing Europe to Putin on a silver platter, starting with Ukraine (and he is too stupid to realise how Putin is playing him). Also, since he has no understanding of economics at all, having spent his life so far bankrupting one business after another, he is now bankrupting USA and the world.

And like a good would-be dictator, he dodged the draft by lying about an injury, and is now planning a military parade for his next birthday.

Give me a break: NOT boycotting that banana republic would be completely counter-intuitive to me as well as to most other Europeans.

EDIT on 09 April: And now this: https://youtu.be/c143MbcoITw?si=sxEWkTvnA03N5BaF. And I believe those cheering audience sounds are real. Every time we think it can not get more cringe- and puke-worthy. Going completely off-line just so we do not have to be assaulted by the daily dose of vomit coming out of that country seems more and more doable until such time that we have non-US alternatives. Even listening to someone – anyone – speaking with an American accent is becoming unpleasant, much the same as hearing Russian spoken.

The idea of not being perpetually angry is appealing, but will it be better to feel perpetually ignorant?

Out and about

Görlitz first weekend in April 2025

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I first visited Görlitz, for no particular reason, in October 2023, as described in this post.

This time, the occasion was these two tours to what for some strange reason the Germans call “Lost Places” (why DO they call them that?). I had very little idea of what to expect, and a list of places to be visited does not exist.

Having set off from Berlin very early in the morning of 4 April, while walking in the direction of my hotel in the Altstadt, I looked for a nice café first thing upon arrival, and found Café Bikini in Berliner Straße. New, with healthy food choices and great coffee. Highly recommended.

Later in the day, I re-discovered another very nice café, this one on the other side of the river Neiße in Zgorelec. I also still find it fun to be able to nip over to Poland for a coffee. While we still can. Before Trump hands Putin Poland on a silver platter.

Photos from day 1:

Day 2: before going back to Café Bikini for brunch – an early walk in Stadtpark where the day before I had heard and seen many birds, and photographed, a.o. my first Hawfinch/Kernbeißer.

Heard many different birds again, and got some photographs of variable quality. Am posting most of them here, at least for the purposes of identification later.

Not sure about this one (same bird in all three photos):

The following are Nuthatch/Kleiber, Red Kite/Rotmarlin, Robin/Rotkehlchen, Song Thrush/Singdrossel, Starling/Star, in that order.

Two small buildings next to each other, a monument for the 15th East Meridian, some miniature daffodils, and the obligatory tree in black and white, in that order.

Photos from the afternoon’s tour of five “Lost Places”

The tours were not dedicated photo tours, and the groups were large (I estimate about 35 people on the first tour). The following is the best I was able to do with the time, space, opportunity, and light (or lack of) available.

The tour on day 2 had slightly fewer participants, but again the usual, obligatory handful of badly brought-up retards who were unable or unwilling to keep their mouths shut while the guide was speaking.

Same number of places visited as on day one (six) but where we walked about 7 km on day 1, we only walked between four and five km on the second tour. Others who might want to attend one or more of these tours should be prepared for lots of stairs.

Before the tour, I took this one from my hotel room:

Some of the photos from the Sunday tour were taken on the way from place to the next:

Activities and hobbies

Birdwatching with VHS at Moorlinse/ZickZack Graben/Bogensee

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With Rob Crouch. Another great walk and as usual fun to meet other bird nerds, and great to be out in some lovely nature.

And we did not even notice the partial solar eclipse!

By the way, it has come to my attention that not all nature lovers in Berlin are aware of the Umweltkalender, so here it is again. Depending what you look for, there are filters, and I personally filter for “Führung” and then in Zielgruppe for “Erwachsene” – that weeds out a lot of activities in which I would not be particularly interested.

I will be out of Berlin the next couple of weekends, so the next event found in Umweltkalender which I will attend is this one in Wuhletal.

Some of VHS’s birdwatching events are listed in Umweltkalender, but unfortunately, in true, German IT-angst fashion, not all (and consistency is not Volkshochsschule’s Spitzenkompetenz in any case – VHS in each Bezirk seem to function as completely separate institutions that have nothing whatsoever to do with each other (???). For example, this one, to which I have signed up, is not in Umweltkalender: https://www.vhsit.berlin.de/VHSKURSE/BusinessPages/CourseDetail.aspx?id=712215, and I recently discovered one of Rob Crouch’s walks that is also not listed there, so if you want to stay in the loop, you unfortunately have to keep checking the VHS website which is still really heavy and time-consuming to navigate.

Back to this Saturdays’s walk: We saw many birds but unfortunately, I did not manage any particularly good photos. However, for purposes of identification, I am posting some here nonetheless.

On Moorlinse we saw a duck which on the spot we identified as a Pochard/Tafelente, and in ZickZack Graben a cute little thing which at first we thought was a kind of lark, then when seeing it in-camera some kind of warbler, but on seeing the photo enlarged, Agata suggests it might be a Blackthroat/Schwarzkehlschen. Walking along, we then saw cranes, herons and geese (as well as several birds of prey hovering over the trees at the edge too far away to be photographed).

We also witnessed, from a great distance, a bird being mobbed by a crow. This would normally happen to a bird of prey, and was initially identified as a Hen Harrier, or some other Harrier, alternatively as a Kiebitz (but do crows usually harrass birds other than birds of prey?). The photos are terrible, and the answer is blowing in the wind, but somebody in my trusty Facebook group on birds in Berlin says that the bird on the second photos is definitely a Kiebitz. If anybody sees this and has comments, they are welcome in an e-mail to me here.

In the forest on the other side of the road, after the lunch break, we saw traces of beaver, but of course no beavers in the middle of the day. We would need to come back at dawn or at dusk (and then still not be able to see those shy and elusive buggers). But there was one piece of some kind of cattle – sometimes there are many more of them – perhaps as from April.

Also a couple of Mallards/Stock Ente:

The following is a series of photos of a Nuthatch/Kleiber we saw moving in and out of what is probably his lodgings for the season, and yes, I know, they are quite common, and I already have hundreds of photos of them, but this one was too cute not to photograph.

Moving on to Bogensee, where I had hoped to see the Great White Egret, instead we saw a heron preparing to move in for the kill, and some ducks which we think might be Teals/Krickente.

Other photos taken along the way:

And finally, my favourite subject – the obligatory trees in black&white:

Activities and hobbies

Birdwatching walk on Pfaueninsel

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With Frank Wissing from NABU Bezirksgruppe Mitte.

I don’t like peacocks, and luckily we did not really come across many. However, there were a couple of “firsts” for me (first seen, first photographed).

We also saw several birds of prey/Greifvögel – a couple of Buzzards, a Western marsh harrier/Rohrweihe, a Red Kite/Rotmilan, and two White-tailed Eagles/Seeadler. Unfortunately, I did not manage to get any good photos of any of those. Also on the island a lot of Greylags/Graugans.

First, while waiting for the bus from S Wannsee to the Pfaueninsel Ferry (218 – goes hourly), this Blackcap/Mönchgrasmücke  was singing (I had seen one before but never managed to photograph):

Once on the island, my first efter Chiffchaff/Zilpzalp:

And my first Marsh Tit/Sumpfmeise:

And some Goosander/Gänsesäger (which I may have seen before, but never photographed):

Other photos:

And finally, the island seems to have a resident fox:

Out and about

Halle/Saale mid-March

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Main purpose: Visit this exhibition on surrealism in Kunsthalle Talstraße.

Had hoped for better weather and more nature photography.

Halle Saale Busbahnhof:

Back in Berlin, two birds, and someone multi-tasking on my local playground.

And the next morning, some really bad photos of the lunar event 14 March:

Cooking

Paneer and broccoli masala

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I have not made this for a long time, so time for a re-posting and re-cooking.

  • 2 tblsp oil or ghee
  • About 200 g paneer (made of 1 l milk and 1 dl yoghurt) in bite-size cubes
  • 20 fresh curry leaves, if available, otherwise similar dried
  • 2 tsp black mustard seeds
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 2 large garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1 tblsp ginger peeled and finely chopped
  • 2 chilies, or to taste, in whichever way, shape or form available
  • 2 tblsp tomato purée
  • 1 tblsp garam masala
  • 2 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tine coconut milk
  • 200 g broccoli florets
  • 1 tblsp tamarind paste or to taste
  • Salt
  • Garnish with fresh coriander if available.

Gently brown the paneer on all sides in the oil. Remove from the pan.

Crisp up the curry leaves in the same pan. Remove them from the pan to use as garnish.

Sizzle the mustard seeds and cumin seeds adding more oil if needed. Stir in turmeric and onion. Allow the onion to soften before stirring in garlic, ginger and chilies, followed by the tomato purée, garam masala and ground coriander after a further minute.

Pour in the coconut milk and tamarind, bring to a simmer, and add the paneer and broccoli. Simmer for five minutes.

Activities and hobbies

Birdwatching x 3: 7, 8 and 9 March

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On 7 March a visit to Tierpark, my favourite zoo in the world, and Europe’s biggest landscape zoo.

There was not a whole lot going on, except the herons were busy building nests in the highest treetops, flying to and fro with building material. Such majestic and elegant flyers.

The hightlight was the black woodpecker – one of the rarer types of woodpeker, at least in Berlin – which I spotted towards the end of the afternoon on my way out.

I saw many great spotted woodpeckers. The first photo is of one flashing its characteristic red rump, and the second of a couple of pigeons, even more common, looking as if they were thinking of starting a family.

On Saturday 8 March a birdwatching walk with Volkshochschule Tempelhof-Schöneberg in Lichtenrader Wäldschen, led by ornithologist Enrico Hübner. The special focus was on woodpeckers, since apparently, all five Berlin woodpeckers had been spotted in the area. We saw many “Buntspechte”, a couple of Mittelspechte, one Scwarzspecht, and one Grünspeccht – the latter very high up. We saw and/or heard a total of 29 birds. I got one bad photo of the Grünspecht. The forest was quite dense so even without leaves on the trees, it was difficult to take photos.

On Sunday 9 March Landschaftsfriedhof Gatow and adjoining fields

“Spandau each month on the 9th”: Bezirksgruppe Spandau des NABU Berlin, led by Christine Kuhnert.

Very exciting – a cemetery I did not know existed, and lots of birds to see. I definitely want to go back, perhaps very early in the morning to the fields, and then enter the cemetery when it opens at 7.30.

Here is a not very good photo of a jay (Eichelhäher) and a kestrel/Turmfalke, and one of a raven/Kolkrabe of which we saw quite a few:

And a first for me: Yellowhammer/Goldammer. So beautiful:

The first two is of a chaffinch/Buchfink. I am not sure about the next two:

The long-tailed tit/Schwanzmeise I have seen many times but never managed to get a half-way decent photo. These are the best I have taken so far:

The next bunch probably need no introduction, except the last one which I was told was a Rotmilan.

Buzzard/Mäusebussard (the same on all three photos):

Activities and hobbies, Uncategorized

Birdwatching in Britzer Garten on 2 March – despite …..

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The day started misty and cold, but since I have never been so angry in my life, I decided to stick to my original plan of attending the bi-weekly walk with Bernd Steinbrecher of Freilandlabor Britz. Those walks are always enjoyable so it would in any case be healthier to go out and focus on something else – like staying warm, for example – than to follow my gut instinct and stay at home and continue building up to a stroke or a heart attack :-).

A good photo of a green woodpecker – finally – might have saved the day but though I saw several, I STILL did not get a decent photo.

Thoughts and opinions

I love Berlin but it does have its less attractive quirks

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For example (in addition to the many lies being told seemingly totally accceptably and described in a previous post) when outdoor temperatures drop to zero and below, I can often only manage about 17 C inside my flat.

I know from previous years that reporting that to Hausverwaltung (Schön & Sever) is a waste of time. They don’t care, and at best refer to the plumber who knows the house (Detlef Spinka) who ignores my messages.

That is also Berlin.

Normally, it is not a big problem for me – I don’t like having more than 19 C indoors anyway, and can manage with socks and blankets when I am at home, but having people around can be a problem, for example for the bridge evenings.

I am currently considering cancelling tomorrow’s film evening, alternatively have loads of candles to light in the hope that they will raise the temperature a degree or two, and provide the aforementioned socks and blankets. But candles are also a health hazard.

During some of the past much colder winters, I have shut off the bedrooms and only used the living room (where I have also slept) and the kitchen.

The colder is it outside, the colder the radiators. That is Berlin logic. Or Schön & Sever logic, or whatever.

And before anybody says “Mieterverein” for the thousands time I am not the “Mieter” and therefore have no rights ;-).

And of course I have the additional handicap of not being German, so those of us who are not ethnic Germans are shut down immediately whenever we try to say a pip-squeak in the annual owners’ meetings, which I have therefore stopped attending. It feels like being in a meeting of a local AfD section.

For now, I shall just enjoy the views in the knowledge that it is only a matter of weeks till it becomes warmer outside and no longer a problem.

In the meantime, here are some photos from last night’s snowfall: