IN PROGRESS Last updated 29 June
10 June an evening walk on Tempelhofer Feld with Grün Berlin
Very interesting “Urban ecological guided tour” led by Frederic Griesbaum and Korbinian Pacher.
Just as on Tegeler Stadtheide, a “man-made” breeding habitat has been created to attract the critically endangered Wheatear/Steinschmätzer. On one of the photos, a male and an offspring can be seen. In these times of let’s-destroy-everything-we-have-built-and-the-planet-and-then-the-moon-is-next, this made my heart sing.
Two new webinars with Blende2-Hamburg – always exciting.
Saturday 13 June visit UNESCO Biosphere Reserves Spreewald with Volkshochshule Berlin, led by Derk Ehlert – “he who needs no introduction” 🙂
As usual, Derk Ehlert shared his boundless knowledge and enthusiasm.
We had barely got off the regional train in Lübbenau before a Black Kite appeared overhead – a first for me. Shortly afterwards, we approached a field which was being mowed by a tractor – presumably injuring/rendering unconscious/killing many small rodents, and one stork was already busy eating. Soon, several kites and a buzzard came along. At one point, we saw seven birds of prey circling at the same time. A double feast – one for the birds, and defintely one for us.
Later, we took a boat (Kahn) to Lübben. This boat trip would have been blissful if it were not for many people’s disability to keep their mouths shut, even in nature. Up to then, the usual incessant yacking had not been too bad, but by the time we were seated in the boat, many were unable to keep it in any more. It is almost as if people feel they do not exist unless words – any words, usually totally irrelevant – are being emitted from their mouth. Preferably loudly, if not shouting, because the whole world must hear what they seem to consider their words of wisdom. Do they not realise how much shite they unthinkingly let out on that account? It always drives me nuts, and was one of the reasons I decided not to attend the second visit to a UNESCO site the day after.
By the way, the barge trip also involved another surreal experience of watching a handful of grown people drink Coke (????? WHAT is that about – I thought that only happened in Denmark??????). But we also saw a White-Tailed Eagle, as well as its nest with two offspring, and towards the end of the trip, a beautiful Red Kite seemed to welcome us to Lübben in the afternoon sun.
Bonus tip: RB20 takes no time at all to get from Lübben to Berlin Südkreuz, stopping only in Königs Wusterhausen and BER Airport on the way.
By the way … I need to get this off my chest
Once upon a time, a young woman, reportedly known as a “party girl notorius for being involved with men in the Oslo drug scene” gave birth to a little boy whom she named Marius. At the time of Marius’s birth, his biological father was serving a prison sentence for drug‑related violent offences.
Fast-forward a couple of years when the young woman meets a prince and marries into a royal family and subsequently has two more children.
As the only one in that family, in a monarchy of which absurdly, there are still a handful left in Europe, where royal titles are all-important, Marius was never given a royal title, nor any so-called royal “duties”, and it was always made sbundantly and repeatedly clear – in the media, to the pubic, to him …- that he was the odd one out. Irrelevant.
As a further complication, when he was about 20 years old, his mother was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease which normally means that sufferers have an average life expectancy of about seven years after diagnosis.
Fast-forward again, and Marius is now convicted of much the same category and nature of offences for which his biological father was in prison at the time of his birth.
Ironically, he is suddenly no longer quite so irrelevant as it was always hammered into his head, and to the world around him, that he was. Now, him facing a lengthy prison sentence is being treated as a threat to the Norwegian monarchy, no less.
Hipocrisy rules.
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16 June:
While out taking photos for this post, I also took these: (The street photo was an accident, I swear :-)).
17 June Tierpark and Tempelhofer Feld
Looking for photos for the Blende2-Hamburg webinars (which I will not initially post here), I went to Tierpark and then on impulse to Tempelhofer Feld.
18 June
A guided tour of the Boros Bunker collection. Always interesting to see these exhibits which change every four years.
Afterwards, a birdwatching walk with NABU/Frank Wissing on Döberitzer Heide (which unfortunately I had to cut short because stupidly, I had been doing too much, walking too fast, drinking too little water, whatever, in a stifling heat. So I missed out on a lot of Frank Wissing`s boundless knowledge.
Friday 19 June, with 33C forecast and last night’s near collapse in vivid memory, I decided to stay indoors, except for a couple of hours on my balcony in the very early morning, where I experimented with photographing shadows – yawn, but I might have to use one of them for one of the webinars.
21 June a photoworkshop with Grün Berlin, Campus Stadtnatur, and Fotoimpulse on Tegeler Stadtheide
We started out worried about the heat and no shade until taken by surprise by a giant thunderstorm and rain like I have rarely experienced in Europe. Wet clothes and shoes then kept us cool after the rain stopped.
22 June a very early walk to Urbanhafen
In order to beat the midday heat and to work on the current webinar assignments. Also took these photos:
22 June New “Stumbling Stones” in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
Towards mid-morning, the sun was already merciless so I only managed to witness the first one:
23 June another very early start
I could get used to this: Go out at first light and make photos, especially, but not exclusively, for the webinar assignments, while the light is nice and soft, and get the 12-15.000 steps in, then brunch in a nice café (preferably not part of the eternal, non-descript chains, but unfortunately those can be few and far between in some areas) and be home and out of the sun before 10 or 11 AM, and stay home till 3 or 4 o’clock the next morning. Perfect. I might be turning summer from my least favourite to my most favourite season yet. I went to explore the area around Reichsstagufer/Kanzleramt/Central Station and had brunch in a very nice café facint Moltkebrücke – Lantana Café Berlin.
In the early evening, I went to Tempelhofer Feld in order to get some more photos for the webinar assignmentss:
25 June
Cancelling all plans due to increasing heat. Continuing to go out very early to get my 12-15.000 steps in and to make photos and be home by 10 am or even earlier.
I was at Tempelhofer Feld from about 05.45 to 07.15, and in that time, Merlin heard 23 different birds. Of course, the birding app is not always right, and cannot always tell the difference when some birds imitate other birds, but that is still an extraordinary number, especially in a short time span and in the middle of such a big city. So: HANDS OFF TEMPELHOFER FELD!
I took some more photos for this post. And for a collage I am working on. And these:
And returning home, I saw that Jewish Museum was at it again, even after many complaints during summers past. They really do not care.
Watering mostly sun-heated asphalt, slag (leaching all kinds of toxins and heavy metals? I hope not), and a piece of stupid lawn. Well done – by all means don’t worry about water as a scarce resource that is only a prerequisite for all life on earth.
26 June
With up to 41C forecast for the weekend, I started to pepare for a self-imposed lock-down 🙂 and took a brief walk on my local cemetery – not much going on there even at 8 in the morning, did a bit of shopping in LPG and had breakfast in By Schicksals.
I only took this photo of a Kestrel in a slightly unlikely location on a roof in Friedrichstraße just opposite Besselpark – a location I can also see from my windows, so I shall have to keep an eye out for Kestrels as more frequent visitors in the area. They are among my favourites and more than welcome, not least because of the growing rat population.
29 June
After a weekend of around 40C, which I will not even begin to describe except I did not go outside at all (26C on my balcony at 3AM) but mercifully with extremely low humidity, the temperature fell to around 27C in the morning of 29 June, but with much higher humidity, so it felt really muggy. I went out walking at about 5AM. Took some more photos for this post about wildflowers in Berlin, and some for a project I am working on about garbage and garbage bins – not sure about the exact result(s) yet. As well as these (including Berlin’s newest mural, a mosaic, on Mehringplatz):
30 June
First, An exercise in not being annoyed by things over which one has no influence: The fact that this year’s Strawberry Moon set (from where I was looking) behind a big building, so I missed about ten (?) minutes of it; and the fact that it seems they are determined never to fix that damn clock. It has been stuck for more than ten years, that I know of. Am I missing something? Is the point in time when it stopped significant? Perhaps it did not matter when it was a church, but now it is a meeting facility/conference space. Apparently, Axel Springer financed the tower back in the 1960s (the original church stood where his buildings now are, a few hundred meters in the other direction. The history is here: https://besondere-orte.com/de/historie-tagungswerk). I’ll bet he would be turning in his grave over such imprecision. #tagungswerkberlin #jerusalemkircheberlin Oh, and that football thing, having hoped that Germany would have had the opportunity to beat the cr.. out of USA later.
Shortly after moonset/sunrise, a Buzzard circled above my balcony. If I were supersticious, I would take that as a positive omen.
Went on an early morning walk to Märkisches Ufer for a bit of the “maritime” flair which I miss from Denmark. On the way, happy to see that the “Tiny Forest” at U Spittelmarkt is thriving, and that one of the Coot couples had just had their second brood of the season.
