Zugvögel - Birds of Passage

Every year come autumn a predictable depression befalls me, when the sun disappears for months behind grey clouds, the temperature  drops to values where socks and shawls are required and staying indoors seems preferable to a walk in the garden. Then, my well-known melancholic streak gets the upper hand. 

This is the time when migratory bird pass over and I wish I could fly with them. Large groups of cranes in V-formation, up to 150 individuals, fly in from the north and pass over in southwesterly direction straight on with loud chatter in the sky. They seem to be discussing the flight route - look down there: these are the Taunus hills, we head for the Main valley, then the confluence with the river Rhine and follow that down south ... that's what it sounds like.  Or maybe they sing songs, marching hymns like soldiers or children in kindergarden, to keep up spirits on the way and last through the long flight. Or they are counting one, two, three,... seventy, seventy-one .. haven't we lost anyone? Apparently, cranes fly in families, they raise one or two kids in Scandinavia and take them southwards, joining other families, because they would not find their way alone. 

Storks, on the other hand, who travel these long distances to Spain and further on across Gibraltar as well, apparently have some inherited navigation system, some instinct knowledge where to go , because their young ones preceed their parents' journey by at least a week or so. 


Close to Berlin, one hour westwards, a small village called Linum surrounded by flooded meadows is a resting place , a sort of travelling station to stock up food and body fat, for passing cranes in autumn, in October. This is not an old natural, wild area. Meadows were only given back to nature in recent years, in the past 25 years or so, when a protected area for birds was established. And not until farmers turned to growing maize in large quantitites because of the renewable energy craze in recent years which leaves large fields with maize left-overs after the harvest, did cranes come in large numbers to rest here. The cranes feed on those left-overs during the day and sleep on the safer floodplanes overnight. Up to 60.000 cranes have been counted this autumn when they assemble here in the area. Due to the ongoing agricultural glut, the numbers are steadily and exponentially rising. Young cranes are fed well before they start on their arduous journey south and fewer individuals die from exhaustion. So for the moment and for our delight, crane numbers are rising. 

 Linum in  evening light

Before nightfall, one flight after the next comes in like on Frankfurt airport; you can see the next group in V-formation arriving one after the other far into the distance, 10 or 15 km away, accompanied by their characteristic trumpeting sounds. 

Cranes are very flighty companions, their safety distance is 300 meters, so visitors are not allowed any closer for fear to chase them away and to make them fly up and waste valuable energy that they need for their long-distance journey ahead. Maybe in a few years, when the numbers rise even more, visitors will be invited closer to chase them up for an exercise programme when they start falling out of the sky because of obesity ....

A couple of days more and we will follow the crowd and fly south for some sun - 

See you next year!   

Merry Christmas - Fröhliche Weihnachten

A Very Merry Christmas to everybody ...

with a collection of "Child in the Manger" exhibits,

 - a child that was born 2000 years ago in Bethlehem in Judaea, son of God, son to Maria and Joseph, 

who grew up to preach a peaceful religion of love and tolerance, mercy  and forgiveness, in the knowledge of human weakness,

with 2.300.000.000+ followers,

who gave his life to redeem our sins -  

 exhibits from the very largest to tiny ones

 from around the world! 

from New York

 a miniature carved from a walnut

sand and natural stone (from the Krippenmuseum, Güstrow)

 life-size on the christmas market in Mainz

 from Murano, Italy

Tuscany, Italy

..... and a Very Happy and Peaceful New Year 2017! 

Festival of Lights 2016

These are pictures from two more light festivals that I visited this autumn to brighten up dark winter months. 

Amsterdam' Light Festival in December illuminates the Grachten:

Berlin's Festival of Lights was in October:

The Law Faculty of Humboldt University

Deutscher Dom

Here is a short video from the Festival of Lights in Berlin this year: an amazing presentation on Brandenburger Tor by a Russian sand painting artist, perfectly choreographed to the tune of "Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten", an old German folk song about Lorelei from a poem by Heinrich Heine, the girl sitting on a rock on the Rhine brushing her long golden hair and leading fishermen astray like the sirens Odysseus. Looking up at Brandenburger Tor with choir music in the background one could feel mesmerized ...    

Plant of the Month : Ferns

evergreen Polystichum setiferum "Plumosum Densum"

Ferns are helpful and unobtrusive fillers for damp dark areas; Matteucia struthiopteris is one of those that grows everywhere and multiplies like weed with long underground stolons; the male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas) is another that turns up in the garden and occupies little root space but unfolds beautiful green fronds in spring that turn yellow-brownish in November. Christopher Lloyd recommends to pull out self-sown ferns and make use of the spaces that they found to plant rarer species - they will thrive where a place holder had found space. It is easier said than done, though, as they often put their roots down in the smallest crevices between pavings and at the foot of damp walls. 

Matteucia struthiopteris crozier

Most ferns are very beautiful with delicate fronds or striking shapes in spring and summer; some ferns are evergreen and will keep their fronds in the severest frost looking fresh and young even when their surroundings succumb to decay.  
We started collecting a few some years ago. Most are best obtained from specialist nurseries. 

Athyrium metallicum niponicum "Pictum" 

Dryopteris purpurella

Polystichum setiferum "Plumosum Bevis"  

decorated with maple leaves

Athyrium otophorum "Okanum" 

Cyrtomium fortunei "Clivicola"

a backside

Walking the Streets of Paris V: Tour d'Eiffel in Variations

...in twinkling dress  ...

Tour d'Eiffel is always worth photographing  - but how to take pictures of this icon without being boring or repetitive? 

 chinoiserie

 an impression

a bit shaky

classic lighthouse

original and copies

so many!

Good night! 

Plant of the Month : Krötenlilie or Toad Lily (Tricyrtis hirta)

This November in this early wet and cold season, this lily still carries a few flowers: sturdy and a bit waxen, they raise their faces through the yellowing leaves of this hardy plant. It is rarely seen in gardens in Germany, although it is an undemanding plant. It needs light shade among shrubs but can stand a drought, too. Its colours vary: when buying one, it is important to see it in flower, buy it in flower, because some varieties have an odd blueish-red shade, like washed-out jeans that have accidentally been put in the same washing cyle together with a bleeding red t-shirt.

I have no idea, why this pretty lily is called toad lily - because of its dots looking like warts? A good reason to try some distorting photoshop-filters ....

Jump!

Educating Our Daughters

Glass Ceilings 

A composition from a photo I got when she visitied Berlin on November 9th, 2009 and from a visit to Washington in 2006, viewed through a glasshouse roof (ok - maybe a bit bland ... :() 

There has been a lot of talk about glass ceilings and about their perceived capacity to keep women from reaching the top echelons in business and politics. 

As the last US election has shown quite clearly, this glass ceiling is not only contrived by men protecting their turf, afraid of strong women bosses. Unfortunately, these glass ceilings are equally or more so supported and enforced by females:
other women are a more serious threat and more difficult to manage  for ambitious women striving to get to the top. 

When we are educating our daughters, we teach them to become independent thinkers, to be proud of their own achievements, to lead the lives they chose to lead. But we don't talk of an inherent womanly character flaw: 

Sadly, women can be so judgemental, resentful and envious of other women and begrudge their successes for no reason at all except that they are women. Some women will go to length to stop other women from achieving their perfectly fine goals even at a cost to themselves. 

What does it matter why and when a woman changed or did not change her surname to adopt her husband's? 
Why would it be interesting ot know whether a woman can make cookies if she is not applying for a job as cook?
Why do we want to know, why a woman decided to stay with an unfaithful husband and save a marriage - surely it must have been for all the wrong and selfish reasons? 
And all these questions were asked about one of the most highly educated women with a long list of proven accomplishments and a perfect capability who was applying for the most difficult job in difficult times. 

I feel so ashamed of my fellow white ladies who apparently predominately decided to shun an eminently suitable respectable woman leader for a misogynist gross bully. I thought we had come further. I thought, we had independently thinking women, proud of their own achievements and supportive of each other, we would decide which work to do, we would decide which guy to marry and we would decide who we want to be represented by. But it seems more than half of the population of white female voters chose the gorilla. 

Why would normal women  vote for the biggest bully on earth? For a proven liar, using abusive hate language, treating half the population as crap, having cheated on his series of wives, with no political record and lots of empty promises  ... 
Because they like self-proclaimed "winners"? They like the biggest and loudest ? The rich guy? Isn't it some primeval, animalish, instinctive,  atavistic drive to be male-supported?  Looking for the strongest guy who might surely know what is best for us? Are we subconsciously dreaming to be the lady of a gorgeous big monster? Rather the cheater than being cheated?  Even though he has proven to be not a protector but denigratory, divisive and abusive? 

We, mothers and grandmothers, have to educate our daughters to be conscious and beware of these faults in our genetic makeup, when we are judging other women. We have to be good examples for our daughters. We have to learn to be critical of our own opinion about other women, and analyze exactly why we don't like a woman.  We must learn that whenever we are asked for an opinion about another woman to switch on our brains, to not judge her on her relationship to the other sex. It seems our judgement is even more negative,  if she has a successful or attractive husband: she "must have slept her way up", or she "must have ridden on his coattails". We must learn to not make assumptions that have no basis in reality. Assumptions made by women about other women are very often very negative and irresponsibly taken for fact. We must learn to be supportive of each other. We must trust and earn the trust of each other and not see the competitor in the pursuit of men.  

Because if these pitfalls have resulted in such a US president, all women who voted for him not because of his virtues and programmes (which certainly is their right), but because they have had some undefined unreflected hatred of Hillary Clinton,  surely deserve that special place in hell that Madeleine Albright talked about. 

November 9 again ...

... another pretentious strongman ...

This November 9th, today,  will go down in history as the day the US people chose to end the role of their country as world leader.  
They seem to be fed up with being moral and good, politically correct, multicultural and tolerant, sick of being constantly shown their faults by a morally superior black president. That was asking too much. So they opened their ears to racist, sexist and hateful talk, shut off their brains,  and let emotions and atavistic instincts overrule their thinking. They chose a several times bankrupt conman, a perceived strongman, who in large fake gold lettering promises cloud-cuckoo-land. They have acted like long starved reigned-back health foodies who desired a big fatty burger with double extra cheese and lots of artificial colour, aroma and what not. And gave in. We can only hope it won't give them and the rest of the world indigestion for a long time. 

So far, he has not shown any interest in politics and no desire to shape the country for a better world except to amass his own personal fortunes. Christian - or humanistic - values are not high up on his list of virtues. But we have to give him the benefit of doubt. There is nothing to go on, no facts to judge how he will react in a crisis - we can only hope that he has been a good actor, that his campaigning was a long, successful act and that he will continue to keep out of politics. And that the US democratic (and republican!) institutions and processes will have enough checks and balances installed and that he will have competent people around -  possibly a good vice president -  to steer the country through the next few years and crises that are sure to come. But that may be very naive ... 

And that he sticks to what he can (possibly) still do well : 

.....enjoy his ladies. ... Sorry, hippo! 

Walking the Streets of Paris IV : Parc André Citroen

Parc André Citroên was opened in 1992 on the space of an old Citroên manufacturing site south of the Eiffel Tower on the banks of the Seine. It is a very young public parc with an ambitious geometric layout. Magnolia grandiflora and oak trees are cut in geometric box-shapes in contrast to more naturally growing parts of the gardens.   

 from above

Parts of the garden are divided into smaller areas with colour themes dedicated to a colour, a metal, a day of the week, a planet, a state of the water (rain, snow etc.) and a sense. 

Six further gardens are named for activities: Jardin doré, Jardin en movement and others. 

The blue garden , Perovskia (russian sage) in the back

Stachys byzantina "Blue Carpet"

Several greenhouses are connected with elaborate elevated walks.

surrounding office buildings

 A cherry alley : cherry trees have been planted on elevated pedestals. They seem to sit on small Mexican-Aztec-style pyramids.

a small bamboo grove

at work

Visitors can ride in a tethered helium balloon 150 m up to see a panorama of Paris: