animals, bird, photography, wildlife

Throwback Thursday: European bee-eater

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, insect, photography, wildlife

Throwback Thursday: purple heron

purple heron (Ardea purpurea) / Purpurreiher

This was really a challenge. According to Google maps and my EXIF data, the nest was about 74m away from my camera. I knew this would be a difficult job, but I expected it to be a bit easier.

A few couples of these very rare herons (at least in Germany – and they are listed in the red part of the IUCN list; meaning they are currently not endangered, but the numbers are decreasing) set up their nests at the edge of a small lake, right in the front row of the reed. The nests are visible from a hiking path and the plants have enough natural gaps of several meters each to easily set up your camera and have a quite good sight. So far, so good. I was also told, to bring a binocular.

After a hike of approximately 45 minutes, we reached the lake. Whan a scene: I saw the lake, the water, hundreds of nests of black-headed gulls in the water, and the ocean of reed as a background of the scene. Did you notice a hint of the purple herons? Me, neither! A friend of mine, a local and being our guide on this trip, pointed to the other side of the lake. Over there, they are! I didn’t notice one. There are a few nests, one beside another. I still was staring at the scene without seeing them. “Take your binocular.” Still no success. “OK, set up your camera and I’m pointing it to one of the nests”. Hey, there they were!!!!!

They are smaller than grey herons (only 70-90 cm long and with 107-143 cm wingspan instead of 90-98 cm length and 175-195 cm wingspan) and despite their intense coloring, they are melting into the surroundings. Not visible, when you not know, they were there and where they are standing or sitting. After I got the first nest in sight, it was quite easy to see the other, too. In my opinion, there were about 10 nests. The nests seem to be founded on some buckled reeds between 20 and 70 cm above the waterline. Surprisingly, some were still building the nests, while others already had quite big nestlings, as you can see in the image above.

The above image is already a crop in post-processing. It is taken with an 800mm lens attached to a camera with an APS-C sensor resulting in 1200mm as their 35mm equivalent. The camera was attached to my tripod by a gimbal. The other guy accompanying me also bought an APS-C camera, but only a 150-600mm lens. With that combo, he only got stamp-like herons. Fortunately, his camera matched my lens too, so I loaned it to him.

Take care!

 

animals, bird, insect, photography, wildlife

Throwback Thursday: European Bee-Eater

APS-C 600mm (= 900mm 35mm-equivalent), monopod, ISO 140, f8, 1/640s

 

One of the most beautiful and colorful birds we have natively in Germany. They are quite rare, but coming further north each year. They benefit from global warming. They hunt big insects like butterflies, hornets, dragonflies, bumblebees, and so on in-flight to make their living. They start quite late in their breeding season and leave quite early in mid-August. End of May they were still mating and not yet breeding.

Take care!