Category: bird

animals, bird, photography, wildlife

Throwback Thursday: go in single file

solaner

 

The weekend before last, we finally got some weather to go out with the camera. We were up quite early to reach our destination at a time before it would be crowded by morning joggers or other human visitors going on their roundtrip in this area. For wildlife photography, it’s important to have a calm surroundings to avoid disturbing the animals. We want to have them near to have a good sight. But, when noisy people are around, the noise will chase the animals into their hide or at least further away from the edges nears walking paths. In nature protection areas, it’s not allowed to leave the paths to give enough room for the animals (and plants) to live their life at our side.

A couple of years ago I was already there. Now, I came back with a better lens and much more luck 😊. I guess I’m going to show you a couple of more images in the next weeks taken at this northernmost free and wild flamingo colony.

Take care!

 

animals, bird, photography, wildlife

Throwback Thursday: European bee-eater

solaner

Two and a half months ago. The same afternoon I took this image in the morning, the world started to get drowned here in western Germany. That afternoon we got the first monsoon-like hard rain out of a series with nearly daily repetition which summited (up to now) in the disaster 4 weeks ago. You might have heard about it in your news magazine on TV. Since then, we have only had a few sunny hours. Mid-July to mid-August is called Dog-days-of-summer. They are supposed as being the hottest days of the year. Usually, many people are complaining about the heat and lack of sleep because of the lack of air conditions in the sleeping rooms. IMHO, that problem isn’t the heat, it’s the moisture that makes the temperature feel hotter than it really is.

Nevertheless, instead of heat, we have too much water (rain) this year. I guess, summer is already over and we already arrived in fall without having had a summer. Only around 14°C, grey sky, and lots of rain, when the temperatures are supposed to be around 25°C or more under a blue sky.

Other regions in Europe are also complaining about bad weather: >40°C and huge wildfires endangering towns, villages, and even big cities in Greece, Turkey, Italy, Croatia, and a few more countries. Even Russia and Finland are recording all-time highs in temperatures.

Who still denies climate change? Everyone can contribute: reduce your consumption of electrical power, using green power instead of power made from coal, think twice if you really need to use your car, lower the temperature of your heating during winter by a few degrees, buy your groceries locally and do it in bulk (i.e. once a month instead of every other day). It’s not much for each of us, but summed up it contributes. In case, you want to do more, there are a lot of other options.

 

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Take care!

 

animals, bird, photography, wildlife

Throwback Thursday: Ghost bike

solaner

 

I’m not living in an area where riding a bike is that common, because I live in a mountainous region. Even in my state, we have a couple of cities and regions where biking is extremely popular. Despite in the cities and regions, where biking is normal, the streets are equipped with bike roads, and so on, accidents happen there as well as in other regions. Usually, the remains from such an accident are removed quite fast. So, you can’t notice it after a few days. Sometimes you can late find it only as records in the insurance or court files.

From movies and music videos, I knew the idea of setting up a ghost bike as a memorial. But, I haven’t seen one here in Germany. Neither in the regions where biking is popular nor in the region, where I live. About 3 or 4 years ago, I spotted one beside a street in a biking region. Unfortunately, it was impossible to stop. Earlier this year I spotted one in one of our neighboring towns. It’s on the side of a 4 lane main road. Especially at rush hour, the cars queue up and traffic jams are not a rare occurrence. The sign near the saddle gives us a little information about the victim who died here at the age of 47.

I managed to stop and take a photo on an early Sunday morning when coming back from a sunrise photo trip. The road is divided by a platform here, where I was safe to take a photo with a telephoto lens. I waited a couple of minutes to have a moving car in the frame to stress the idea of a bike hitten by a car. Accidentally catching a red one was perfect.

Take care!