Category Archives: My photos

Happy Easter!

I know, I’m a bit late, but at least here in Germany it’s still Easter. After having visitors for a couple of days before Easter, we spent yesterday and today quite unspectacularly. We went for long walks on both days, in spite of the almost constant snow showers we’ve had for days. I don’t have anything against snow per se, but would much prefer it during the winter, not a couple of days after the official beginning of spring and with temperatures above freezing so it melts almost as soon as it falls.

This is what the landscape looked like yesterday morning as we set out for our little hike:

Ostern 2008 im Hunsrueck

Weihnachtszeit, Plätzchenzeit

I didn’t have much time for Christmas decoration, present shopping or things like that this year, but last weekend I mananged to bake some Christmas cookies. They’re called Heidesand and are, as far as I know, a Northern German speciality.

Heidesand-Kekse

Heidesand, lecker.

Für die Deutsch sprechenden Leser: Mit einigen Kollegen aus dem Hunsrück und dem Westerwald hatte ich Diskussionen darüber, ob es nun Plätzchen oder Kekse heißt. Man wollte mir weismachen, es gäbe zwischen den beiden einen gravierenden Unterschied – nur konnte mir keiner genau erklären, was genau der Unterschied sein sollte. Zu Weihnachten backen sie jedenfalls alle Plätzchen, keine Kekse. Die Norddeutschen waren sich alle einig: Die Begriffe sind synonym, und man kann sehr wohl Weihnachtskekse backen. Hauptsache, die Plätzchen schmecken.

Green Woodpecker

Last Sunday, André and I observed an interesting visitor in our garden: a green woodpecker (Grünspecht). Unlike “normal” woodpeckers, they mostly search for food on the ground, where they forage for ants, earthworms etc.. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get really close with my camera, so the quality of the images is not the best, but this is what we saw through the living-room window. (As usual, click for a bigger version.)

I think they look even more vibrant than the more common great spotted woodpeckers (Buntspechte) we have here, but I just found out that there are a lot of different kinds of woodpeckers, some of which have even more colourful plumage.