The dirt spot /  by Arne Bischoff

I mainly blog about birds, nature and nature photography. But I happen to be an enthusiastic mountainbike rider for longer than I am into birds and I do work in bicycle media, too. So cycling and especially mountainbiking is quite a big thing in my life.

Recently, my friends from Trailtech Mountainbiking accomplished a community pump track project. A pump track is a circuit of rollers, banked turns and features, designed to be ridden completely by "pumping" – generating momentum by up and down body movements, instead of pedaling.

Kudos and a massive thank you to everyone involved in the project. The place has quickly become an attraction in the small community and more: a wonderfully inclusive, inviting and immersive spot for young and old, bicycle affected or not - for everyone! And boy, do I love this pumping!

Pheasant tales: Beautiful bird, sad bird /  by Arne Bischoff

When it comes to splendour and grand air, not a lot of European birds rival the Common Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus). But this is where the sad part starts. Because it is actually not even European.

Jagdfasan. The pheasant which lives to be hunted.

The Common Pheasant is native to East Asia. During the medieval period it has been introduced to European courts and royalty. With the beginning of the 19th Century humans began to breed and raise Pheasants to be released into the wild only for hunting purposes. This sad practice continues to this day and is reflected in the Common Pheasants German name “Jagdfasan”, which literally translates to “The pheasant for hunt”. The population is not self-sufficient, so every year a new breed of the colorful Gallinaceous birds is released to “freedom” to be shot. The birds that escape the shooting will sooner or later die of cold or predation.

Colourful beauty

Whenever I see a Pheasant, I feel both: Joy and sadness. Joy, because it’s such a gloriously beautiful creature. And sadness, because it only lives to be shot.

Lovely local Tawny Owls /  by Arne Bischoff

So much fluff!

After a one year break, my well known urban Tawny owls came back to the local park nearby to bread. You recognise the female owl by its distinct reddish hue. In 2021 it bred downtown, 2022 it evaded an Eagle owl, and 2023 it came back.

The early owl

I was more than a little surprised when I heard the little owlets begging as early as the first week of April. The next few days revealed three branchlings - one distinctly smaller - who all seem to have made it through the dangerous first days and weeks before they finally learned to fly and I lost track of it.

Spring love

I visited the owls nearly every day for a period of nearly two weeks. By day, they and their watchful parents preferred to hide within the dense branches of a Thuja. After dusk they roamed a considerably larger area, sitting every night in different branches of the surrounding trees, begging. With the owls, the park vegetation grew and grew, too. A lovely spring!

Seems sleepy, but always keeps an eye open. A parent owl.

Early blossomers: Liverleaf, wood anemone and snowdrop /  by Arne Bischoff

Right now, while I am writing these lines, the first liverleafs stretch their heads through the ground. Time for me to revisit two wonderful days in spring 2022 with lots of liverleaf (Anemone hepatica), wood anemone (Anemonoides nemorosa and Anemonoides ranunculoides) and snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis).

I am not a botanist, unfortunately. I had a flower lover with me, and without her, I would not have taken these images. This makes me very thankful. I myself overlook the wonder and beauty of plants way too easily, as I have very little knowledge about those beauties.

That’s why there is not much of a story that I can tell here. I leave it to you to behold and wonder and make your own story of it.

PS Oh and of course, I met some animals, too.

A winter walk with the GDT /  by Arne Bischoff

The winterly Oderteich lake seen from the eastern shore.

Back in February 2022, I spent some time in the local Harz mountain range. I was out with a group of the German Society for Nature Photgraphy (GDT). The GDT is one of the most renowned nature photography organisations in the world, best know for its annual competitions European Wildlife Photographer of the Year and GDT Nature Photographer of the Year. The society is organised within regional sub groups, who go out on excursions, do exhibitions, book projects, critique images together or just share some time with like-minded spirits. And this is exactly what we did. I accompanied my friends through “my mountains”, sharing a little local knowledge and learning from much more skilled and accomplished nature photographers.

Harz mountains: Nature’s building site

The Harz mountains are a classic Mittelgebirge. Its highest summit the Brocken sits only 1,141 m above sea level but features a Scandinavian or Alpine climate. The mountain range was subject to centuries of mining which lead to the plantation and harvest of fast growing spruce monoculture. In recent years, the Harz lost nearly 75 percent of the spruce biomass to a combination of climate change, heat, drought and the bark beetle benefitting from all of it. The erstwhile dense spruce forests seem dead to a lot of people, but it is not. The local national park (Nationalpark Harz) does not intervene with natural processes and lets nature do its very own rewilding programme. Especially the standing Coarse woody debris and the open space attract a lot of pioneer species and lead to a renewed ecological succession. What many perceive as dead is actually more biological diverse and species-rich than the plantations, we learned to know as “nature” (if you are interested in an in-depth explanation, check the embedded video). Losing the spruce monoculture is actually a win for bio-diversity.

Winter photography at Oderteich

Oderteich - a barrier lake - sits at the heart of the national park. It was a quite obvious location choice. You can experience all changes of the ecological succession here. Living spruce, dying spruce, dead but standing spruce, windthrown spruce, pioneer plants such as white birch or mountain-ash; and of course the winterly lake with ice, frost, snow, open water, and mute colors in all its glory.

I know the place really well, but this visit was a true first for me. We were a group of twelve (ish) and everyone was on his or her own and together at the same time. Wandering alone or sharing ideas or thoughts and working, slowly and deliberately their crafts. I felt a little shy in the beginning and was completely unused to this style of photography, usually preferring to be a lonely wanderer with animals as my hasty subject. So I did not take a lot of images. But I learned a lot. Thank you, for the experience, my friends!

At the Baltic Sea /  by Arne Bischoff

January 2022 had it all, although it is long gone now. A new hope and a return to an old love. The beautiful Baltic Sea. A long weekend that felt like a full-on holiday brought me to the Darss peninsula in eastern Germany. A place that is as famous for its long sandy shorelines, dramatic dunes and pine forests, abundance of birds and other wildlife and its solitude in winter, as it is for overtourism in summer. It is just a good place to be.

The western beach (Weststrand) of Darss peninsula.

A walk down the shore

The Darss peninsula is a really young landscape - in geological terms: Dating back only 12,000 years to the Weichselian glaciation. Originally an island, about 1,500 years ago the growing spits attached it to the land. By the end of the 14th century it finally became a peninsula. Both the Weststrand and the Nordstrand are famous for its long beachlines and large sanddunes with dramatic woods, reed beds and marshes. The area is of international importance as rest area for migrating birds and as wintering grounds especially for arctic seabirds. Maybe even more famous are the large herds of Red deer and Wild boar in the region. And of course, it’s beautiful there.

My favorite of all birds! “Rokk, rokk!”

A feast for Crows Ravens

One long walk along the western shores revealed two Common ravens scavenging on a carcass. Given their behaviour and the time of year, they seemed to be a breeding pair.

Over a period of over an hour at least one Raven, oftentimes both, worked the cadaver with astounding stamina. They allowed me quite close - laying flat down in the sand - to take some images. Thank you very much, lovely Ravens, my favorite of all birds.

Eye-level with a Raven and a carcass.
📷 by Nicole | Instagram: Apples ‘n’ Pears Interior

Thousands and thousands of ducks

Ahead of Nordstrand thousands and thousands of ducks were bobbing up and down. Way to far for a photography, but not too far to be watched through the spotting scope. One moment, when a lifeboat left the harbor to go on a routine ride, all of it (or at least it felt like that) went up in the air at once and left me open mouthed. So many ducks: Common eiders, Common scoters, Velvet scoters, Long-tailed ducks, Northern pintails and Greater scaups were making up for the lion’s share. A Northern gannet flew by.

Adorable little Sanderlings (Calidris alba)

The shoreline had its bird-stars, too. A flock of ever so active Sanderlings went in and out, hither and tither with the incoming waves. Again, I found myself flat down in the sands. A young Black-headed gull posed beautifully in the waves. I only missed out on the Snow buntings in my back that were busy searching the wash margins for food and chose to concentrate on the more beautiful background that the sea provided.

Sanderlings in the tide.

A long craved boar pic

I am a firm believer that Wild boar are a shamefully overlooked species, when it comes to nature photography. In an Instagram post from 2021, I challenged myself and all fellow nature photographers to take more images of those amazing animals. It was only two months later that I succeeded with some images that I hold very dear. As I do the whole trip and the person, who did it with me.

They were both incredibly close and extremely well camouflaged in the reeds. It was a special moment, being as close to wild animals that are often - and falsely - touted as aggressive and dangerous. Of course, they know how to look after themselves, as Hagrid would put it. But here, they chose the distance, as it should always be with wildlife photography. They roamed the reeds along the footpaths, relying on their incredible camouflage. Focussing was difficult. But you could hear them from time to time, making wonderful swine sounds and then you could see them and all was wonderful.

A true master of camouflage.

 

Editorial photography: business and passion /  by Arne Bischoff

I love nature. I love observing it and I try to convey it in my own photographical ways. But I do quite a bit of editorial photography, too. Mostly as part of my job as a bicycle journalist on behalf of pressedienst-fahrrad and fahrstil magazine.

If you’re interested in my editorial photography, look no further.

Velkommen til Vassfaret /  by Arne Bischoff

Beautiful Vassfaret.

Vassfaret, southern Valdres, Norway. Fall 2021. If you want to know how I got there, maybe read my Dovrefjell disappointment first. It turned out to be luck, though.

Partisan country

This region is a gem. Vassfaret sits between Hallingdal and Hedalen in the Valdres region. The region boasts low alpine coniferous forests, heather and bog. The fjell around rises to over 1,000 metres, which is well above treeline. You find rivers and lakes in plenty down in the valleys. What makes Vassfaret so special is that it’s wild, but had centuries of cautious human activity, especially logging and timber floating. This results in a number of old an ancient footpaths - quite rare in the Scandinavian fjell, where paths are usually scarce and scattered.

It’s no wonder that Vassfaret was a hotspot of Norwegian resistance against German occupation in World War II and operational base for a guerrilla group codenamed “ELG”. The region offers plenty of cover and resources while still pretty centrally located and quite close to the Norwegian capital Oslo.

Beautiful fall

My friend Linn and I walked into Vassfaret via Hedalen and we could not have wished for a more beautiful fall hike. Striking autumnal colors, warm days, cold(ish) nights in the tent and no one else around. A pleasant change to the over-crowded Dovrefjell, I had experienced only days before. We hiked only three days, but it felt exactly how it should feel for me. Out, remote, wild. I stayed in a little hut in the region for another ten days and it’s safe to say, I will come back. Actually, by the time of writing, I already have been back. But this is yet another story.