Usually, when thinking of “season”, I think of the seasons of the year first. Depending of the region, you’re living in, they are slightly different. While having no seasons in equatorial areas, the seasons of the northern and the southern hemisphere are opposite to each other. So, Leanne asked for an image not showing winter or summer.
Here in Germany, we have a so-called 5th season in some regions: For Carnival (or Mardi Grass in French) colourful processions are organised to celebrate the start of the Lenten season during the last 40 days until Easter. But, showing monochrome images of colorful processions is not a good idea in my opinion.
Thus, I’ve chosen an image of a wheat field, nearly ripe for harvesting. Harvest season has started.
This is my contribution to Monochrome Madness organized by Leanne Cole. Look at here site on Thursday (Australian time), to see many more monochrome images created by many other talented photographers from all over the world.
I’d also encourage you to participate. The conditions are published in each of her Monochrome Madness posts.
This morning, I got the short-term opportunity to go photographing wild flamingos.
Near the Dutch border some escaped flamingos found home a few decades ago. The first birds were seen here in 1970. Today, about 40 of these birds are living here, together with some geese, seagulls and other water birds. They even grow fledglings with some success. It’s the most northern breeding spot for them. You can find 3 species: Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus / Rosaflamingo),American Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber / Kubaflamingo) und Chilean Flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis / Chileflamingo). A few single sights even named a forth one: Lesser Flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor / Zwergflamingo)
The birds stay here for the summer months. During winter, they migrate to southern Netherlands.
Despite the huge distance of about 130 km, I was at 8 a.m. on location. But, you can’t come near to the water. In three different places they have set up observing booths. In one of the places I was lucky enough to get a good image of 5 flamingos while doing their morning routing 🙂 I guess, these are Chilean Flamingos, but I’m not completely sure. The color of their knees would be the proof for my guess.
The above image is taken by using my 80-400 lens extend by an 2x teleconverter attached to my DX camera supported by a monopod and ISO 400, f11 (because of the converter). So, the result is like I’d have used a 1200mm on my full frame camera. Using such a long focal length brings some problems: you must have an extremely high shutter speed (but how to do with f11 and a weak sensor when having to use ISO higher than 400?). The monopod helps ab bit, but it’s still like playing lotto. Thus I’m very happy with the result.
This is a very common food fish here in Germany. There are several recipes available for cooking this fish. It’s grouped with a few other species called “Plattfisch” (flat fish), because of the special anatomy.
These fish come out of their eggs with one eye on each side of the head. But, as they grow older, one eye starts moving to the other side of the head and the fish starts swimming with the side without an eye to the ground, while the side with both eyes is turned up. This way, the fish can hide easily in the sand and observe the water above him.
I took that image of the not completely full-grown plaice in an aquarium.
This is my contribution to Monochrome Madness organized by Leanne Cole. Look at here site on Thursday (Australian time), to see many more monochrome images created by many other talented photographers from all over the world.
I’d also encourage you to participate. The conditions are published in each of her Monochrome Madness posts.
I met this wallaby a few months ago on one of my photography tours. It lives here in Germany in a big park together with a few others.
This is my contribution to Monochrome Madness organized by Leanne Cole. Look at here site on Thursday (Australian time), to see many more monochrome images created by many other talented photographers from all over the world.
I’d also encourage you to participate. The conditions are published in each of her Monochrome Madness posts.
2 beach chairs in the setting sun on the green beach of Friedrichskoog in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
… from the North Sea.
Sitting sun-kissed, mosquito-bitten, cooled down from rain while cycling and quite relaxed. That’s how I’m back to my desk at home. Most of the laundry is already done, fridge is full again and the pile of mail is worked through. During the last two weeks I was on vacation. Our vacation home was on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein, the most northern state of Germany bordering south to Denmark. Schleswig-Holstein has two coasts: the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the east.
Fortunately, I scheduled my blog posts in advance as usual. It was our first vacation home without WiFi for very long time. I forgot to double-check the availability of WiFi in the vacation home while booking. To make it even worse, we were in a region with extremely bad coverage with mobile internet. Only few spots were usable to check emails or social media. The allowed data volume is consumed very quick under these circumstances. Even the local restaurants didn’t offer WiFi to their guests.
We were in the area called Friedrichskoog (a Koog named after King Frederick of Denmark, when it was created more the 150 years ago), a part of the grater area Dithmarschen. Dithmarschen is well known as being a source of vegetables and geese. We saw many, many fields growing different kinds of cabbage, carrots, chard, leek, onions, strawberries, potatoes, wheat and rye. While the rangers in the bordering state Lower-Saxon rise cows for producing milk, you can find here huge herds of sheep instead of cows (despite there are also cows here). Especially along the coast sheep are literally on every dike. I already wrote about the dike sheep and how near you can come to them in a past post. Although, that sheep were on the dikes in East-Frisia, which is part of Lower-Saxon. But, here’s the same – only the herds are bigger and there are more dikes. Btw. Dithmarschen is part of North-Frisia 🙂 wich is part of the state Schleswig-Holstein.
You might ask, why does Schleswig-Holstein have more dikes than Lower-Saxon? That’s because the locals tried to wrest additional land from the sea. You know, the North Sea consists of mudflats. During low tide the sea ground falls (nearly) dry, while high tide or flood the area is below the water again. This moving water brings silt and lays it down, where the streams are weak. So, people have started to put up rows of wooden piles in the mudflats called Lahnung (sing. / pl. Lahnungen). They are meant to give the mud some extra room get laid down. Over time, new areas of land were gained from the sea and parted by a new dike from the sea. This is called a Koog. The technique is quite similar to the Polder in the Netherlands. Because of the growing of the Koogs, there are some dikes one after another, just as the land grew. Nowadays, the still set up Lahnungen to gain new land (and save the dikes!!), but they don’t build new dikes anymore to part them from the sea. The new gained areas are left open to the sea as Salzwiesen (pl. salt meadows). Very special plants grow here. It’s also a breeding area for many sea-birds. And it’s a huge resting area during the biannual bird-migration in spring and fall. Thus, the salt-meadows are parts of the national park „Wattenmeer“ and thus under protection.
As usual, we picked our vacation home near the beach to be able to have an evening walk after diner alone the sea. It’s great to watch the sinking sun, the expanse of the sea (or the mudflat during low tide 🙂 ). Here we have that certain view, too. But the beach is different compared to other beaches. We have had to cross (climb up some stairs) the dike and walk down to the sea limit without having to cross sand or pebbles. We even does not need to climb over rocks. Here, the beach is green. It’s covered with grass. A strange experience. It looks like a lake or so, but not like being at the sea. It doesn’t make any difference. It’s the salty odour, the sound of the birds, the rolling waves and so on.
This land is quite flat. The highest points beside buildings are usually the dikes. This, and laying between two seas make the state the perfect land for producing electric power from wind. So, alone in the area Friedrichskoog, a small part of Dithmarschen, you can find over 90 wind farms with a total of 205 mega-watts, as I read in a local publication dedicated for the tourists.
It’s also a region ideal for biking. Fortunately, there were bikes in our vacation home included, so we didn’t have had to rent some. So, we rode around to see more of the environment. We also made a few trips to other towns nearby. That’s more to tell later :). I also was on the hunt for birds with my camera.
Looking to the seaside from the top of the dike. Interestingly, no beach and no water are in this place (and many others, too). Every now and then, the flood covers the area. Thus the soil is very salty and only very specialized plant can grow here. It’s not possible to use it for growing food or building houses.
But, It’s an area absolutely necessary for some birds. So, many of these areas are preserved at certain times of the year.
In German, these area is called Salzwise (salt meadow or salt marsh).
This is my contribution to Monochrome Madness organized by Leanne Cole. Look at here site on Thursday (Australian time), to see many more monochrome images created by many other talented photographers from all over the world.
I’d also encourage you to participate. The conditions are published in each of her Monochrome Madness posts.
You know, sushi as a kind of Japanese food. It’s (usually raw) fish, rolled in rice and a leaf of alga or kelp.
Germans also have their kind of sushi: Fischbrötchen 🙂
It’s a roll with some kind of fish or with a fish rissole. You can have it with fried fish, smoked fish or raw fish. Different kinds of fish are used for the different dishes.
On the right you can see a Matjes in the roll. Matjes is a young, raw herring. You can also have sour pickled herring (Bismarck-Hering). For smoked fish you can usually have salmon, mackerel, trout or eel. When in the right season you can also have you roll with cooked crabs.
First week of a month means Monochrome Madness with a theme. This week it’s “wild”
Here we have Gullfoss again. See, how the water jumps over the cliff. Watch the wild energy inside of it. How tiny the men are, beside the enormous power of the running water.
This is my contribution to Monochrome Madness organized by Leanne Cole. Look at here site on Thursday (Australian time), to see many more monochrome images created by many other talented photographers from all over the world.
I’d also encourage you to participate. The conditions are published in each of her Monochrome Madness posts.
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