Infrared: notable oak trees in the Schönbuch forest 2016-05-28

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Gabeleiche

Prinz-Friedrich-Eiche

flowering rape-seed fields of Einsiedel 2016-05-04

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rapeseed blossom

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flowering rape-seed near Einsiedel

flowering rapeseed fields

rape-seed flower

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long shadows: flowering rapeseed fields of Einsiedel in the evening light

newt larvae 2020-04-29

While watching alpine newts in the small pond in our garden, I noticed a small larva swimming which quickly disappeared towards the bottom. While first suspecting a dragonfly larva, I soon started to notice one, than many larvae on some algae covered surfaces. As the alpine newts (Ichthyosaura alpestris) are the only vertebrates in this lake, these newt larvae are easily identified ;)

newt larva

The larvae currently have a length of 10-15 mm, the scale bar (in the lower left of the images) indicates 1 mm – the larva in the picture above thus has a length of approx. 15 mm.

The newt larvae catch less attention than the tadpoles of frog, since their colour is more camouflaged, they prefer to stay close to the ground, and they don´t move a lot during this young stage.

newt larve on the ground of the pond

newt larva

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Cornus florida 'Rubra' (flowering dogwood ) 2018-04-27

flowering dogwood Cornus florida 'Rubra'
in the botanical garden of the university of Tübingen

flowering dogwood Cornus florida 'Rubra'

spring in and around the Schönbuch forest 2020-04-15

The forest turns green—while the beeches are about to open their buds or just have opened them in the previous days, birches already have their leaves; wild cherries are in full bloom and—especially in the evenings—spread their sweet fragrance, and so do most of the fruit trees around the forest; rapeseed fields have also started to flower—that´s how to briefly summarize the current progress of spring here.

Here I want to share a couple of impressions of a late afternoon cycling tour through the southeastern part of the Schönbuch forest. Let´s start with another set of images of the tracks through the light-flooded spring forest:

forest tracks photographed with 50 mm (5D)

flowering wild cherries

flowering wild cherry tree

flowering wild cherry tree

flowering wild cherry trees in the spring forest

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