By graceful invitation from Treppenwitz, I will contribute to this thread, starting now with a copy and paste from another thread, because I am lazy. That is what I wrote over the other thread with the title “Today in Nature I Saw”:
But what I saw today in nature? I will reveal a secret here: My wife and me have just bought a swamp. Really, not kidding, 1.34 acres of bog, pure morass. The correct term for that kind of marsh in German is Erlenbruchwald (link to German Wikipedia). A moor where alder (German: Erle, thus the name) grow until they fall, because the ground is not solid enough for tall trees. Then they rot. I might start another thread about this place, we are looking forward to getting bitten by mosquitos, falling into ditches, escaping from wild boars, the kind of things you do in fens and mires and muskegs and so on.
And what did I see? First, dryness. All the ponds and draining ditches etc. we saw just one month ago, when we bought it, are dry. The nearby lake, the one we should never reach because it is too swampy on the way there, is reportedly 50 cm lower than usual at this time of year. That is a lot when you consider that lakes around here seldom are deeper that 2 - 3 m, if at all. That the surface is dry and the frogs are gone does not mean that you cannot sink 2 to 3 feet all of a sudden. I almost lost my Wellington Boots!
Second, we saw garbage. We knew that, we went today with several big plastic bags (yeah, I know…) to collect all the plastic, bottles, plastic sheets, shoes, plastic ducks, cans, plastic flower pots, etc. etc. etc. we could gather in a couple of hours. It was a lot. It made little difference. There is a task for the next weeks and months.
But that is OK with us, as cleaning the place is about the only activity allowed there. It is an official Biotop, something like a reserve. Proud to have one now. We probably do not know what a mess we are getting into.
And here is a link to the first four pictures, images of the same spots three weeks ago and today, two and two, from slightly different angles.:
