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:

Everybody please stop the habitual whining and fussing!

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Increasingly, wherever I go I am surrounded by fusspots and whiners.

Are you even hearing yourselves? The light is either too dark or too bright; the temperature in the room is either too cold or too warm; the air too stale or too fresh; the bridge cards too big or too small or too sticky or too slippery; too much or too little milk in the coffee. And on and on and on.

It is as insufferable as it is incesssant, and one gets the impression that most of the time, it is just a bad habit.

And today people are claiming that the switch to daylight saving time/summertime is f…… up their circadian rhythms, or whatever it is, for days. Some even talk about “seasonal jetlag”. Give me a break!

Do most people still have dozens of devices which they need to spend time on resetting manually? No. Do most people have to get up extremely early to catch a red-eye on this partcular Sunday? No. Do most people have a disease which causes them to need to be extra-ultra-meticulous with the timing of their medication? No.

In fact, if the press did not make such a song and dance about it, nobody would even notice nowadays.

So please stop and think before you mindlessly blurt out all these eternal, petty complaints and focus on dealing with the real problems in the world.

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:

Schönower Park and Heinrich-Laehr-Park

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After a “successful” check-up (two years and eight months cancer free – and boob-free, but you can’t have everything) with my invaluable gynecologist, Dr Ursina Heil (who shares offices with my equally invaluable GP, Dr Thomas Heil) in Halensee, on a tip from Agata, a fellow bird nerd, and bridge buddy.

My main purpose was to finally get a decent photo of a Green Woodpecker/Grünspecht, which has become my Achilles’ Heel. The first couple of years in Berlin, I never saw any, and after I started seeing them from time to time, I have ever only managed really bad photos of them. Recently, I have been to places where, alledgedly, there should be several of them, but not seen any, and today was no exception, but I got lucky in other ways.

I started in Schönower Park, where there was a loud party, so I only photographed some of those invasive beasts – Mandarin Ducks – and a small section of the John F. Kennedy School.

Further south in Heinrich-Laehr Park, I had the priviledge of coming up close and personal with a Goshawk/Habicht, disturbing him in a freshly slaughtered meal of what I assume used to be a pigeon.

Other results: A Great Spotted Woodpecker/Buntspecht, what I think was a Redwing/Rotdrossel, and a cute, singing Robin/Rotkehlchen.

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:

Animal portraits at Berlin Zoo

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(In view of my ressistance to make human portraits ……)

In my opinion the most hyped and overrated animal in the world. All they do is eat and contemplate their big, and growing, bellies (much like some …. well, never mind) and they can’t even be bothered to have sex. This set of twins, and the last one about four years ago, in Berlin Zoo, came about by way of artificial insemination:

Some more birds:

I also like hoofstock …..

….. and almost all other animals:

A walk across my local cemetery on my way to my local LPG supermarket

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Decided to photograph some of the more common, usual suspects which I normally do not bother to photograph. And good to see that the supply of material for my series “garbage disposal Berlin-style” is never-ending and that the pigeons were eyeing my balcony when I got back just in time to avert the start of a new nest.

Short walk with VHS Zehlendorf on Zehlendorf Cemetery

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Just a star looking a bit lost, a song thrush, and another of those stupid balloons.

Birdwatching Britzer Garten 16 March

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After yesterday’s disappointment when it was raining in Friedrichshagen at the time when the Volkshochschule birdwatching walk at Müggelsee was due to start, it was nice to wake up to gorgeous weather for this Sunday walk, led by always knowledgeable Bernd Steinbrecher of Freilandlabor Britz.

It was a lovely walk with a couple of – for me – new faces, and without the usual gang of incessant yackers.

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:

The life of a Danish pensioner in Berlin