🕊🔭🐒 I observed some birds!

🪶 In the partially flooded salt marshes, numerous black-headed gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) gathered to feed. Their cries could be heard for kilometers.

🪶 On a sea buckthorn bush, a male white wagtail (Motacilla alba) in breeding plumage is perched. In non-breeding plumage, adult birds lack the black markings on the head.

🪶 If you got too close to the Eurasian oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus), you immediately felt a pang of guilt. Their piping calls have something reproachful in their tone.

🪶 Common pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) can be encountered everywhere. The colorful males are often heard calling, while the hens try to remain inconspicuous with their chicks.

🪶 A barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) is nesting in a shelter. I remember that they nested in exactly the same place back in my childhood.

🥚 A mysterious egg! Which dinosaur laid this?

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🏕🌛 I spent my vacation on Baltrum at the campsite. That way, I felt especially close to the completely car-free island. The campsite is located right in the nature reserve of the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park, surrounded by dunes and directly adjacent to the salt marshes.

⛱️ Since school holidays hadn’t started yet and I was the first camper of the year, I had the place mostly to myself. Only over the long weekend starting with Ascension Day were there a few other campers. The site belongs to the youth education center of the Lower Saxony Gymnastics Association and is managed and maintained voluntarily by its members. Many things on the site were built by the young people themselves, such as a shelter and seating areas.

🎵🐦🌳🪺🌾 During the day, you occasionally hear children playing, but at dusk and during the night, there’s no sign of people. You hear the trees rustling in the wind, the flapping of the tent canvas, and a choir of countless birds. In the morning, a pheasant crows to wake you. It's currently breeding season—around 300 different bird species are counted in the East Frisian Islands region in May. The campsite is located right between the two most important habitats: dune landscapes and salt marshes. There’s also a small stand of trees on the site, and nearby you’ll find wet meadows and moorlands. When you open your tent in the morning, the first thing you see is numerous rabbits scattering in all directions.

🦭☠️ A mysterious discovery: after the other campers had left, they left behind a skull. After a bit of research, it turned out to be a seal skull, which they most likely found on the eastern end of the island. That’s where seals spend their youth from autumn to spring.

😊 Altogether, I spent 10 nights in the tent, and the weather was mostly good. It was an extraordinary experience—definitely worth repeating!

✨ After my return home, I noticed that my senses were heightened. I perceived smells, tastes, and sounds with particular intensity.

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🥝🐣 Just let it happen...

Second image generated quite lazily with ChatGPT.

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✨ Let them fly away and enjoy ✨

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Carrion crow on a power line.

The crow stands for faith, creativity and intelligence. Breeding pairs usually stay together for life.

Carrion crows reach the highest level of object permanence. Object permanence, or person permanence, is the cognitive ability to know that an object or person continues to exist even when it is outside the field of perception.

Corvids are also capable of empathy: they comfort and ask for consolation.

I like crows.
And trust is a power line.

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Young and unmated carrion crows live in swarms. Once they have found a breeding partner, they establish territories which they defend against conspecifics.

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African Penguin
(Spheniscus demersus)
2004 @dallaszoo 🏙️

The only penguin species of Africa. 🌍

It's expected to be extinct in the wild in a few years.⚰️

I wish we could just put a band-aid on everything... 🩹

Check @sanccob 🌠

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Western jackdaws (Coloeus monedula spermologus)

Jackdaws are very talkative birds and have - probably due to their high level of sociality - a very broad repertoire of sounds. Short, monosyllabic and metallic-clicking calls that sound higher than the vocalizations of larger ravens or crows are characteristic. The jackdaw has many situation-specific calls, most of which are choppy and high-pitched. But they also let out drawn-out, croaking vocalizations.

Although jackdaws can be found throughout the whole year, most populations migrate from the breeding areas in winter. The number of migratory birds depends on the climatic conditions. Around 70% of Polish jackdaws, but only 23% of Belgian jackdaws, leave the breeding areas in winter.

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❤️🦆🦢❤️

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Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus percnopterus) at breakfast.🦅 ⠀ ⠀
⠀

"How about some salt and pepper for your delicious cadaver?" - "No thanks, sir! It tastes best on its own!" 😋

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