Hallig Gröde - Butterflies and Dragonflies 3

After the butterflies came the dragonflies, zig-zaging through the garden.

To frame the dragonflies was quite difficult, only once in a while they would “sit down” on a flower.

Hallig Gröde - Butterflies and Dragonflies 2

And even more butterflies, which – like me – enjoyed the flowers in the gorgeous rural garden.

Lacking a macro lens, I dared to attach the 2x extender to my 70-200/2.8. This combination allows to fill the frame with the butterflies at the minimum distance of 1.4m. (This picture as well as the previous one is a crop, though.) Image quality is halfway decent, but of course this can’t stand against a macro lens.

Hallig Gröde - Butterflies and Dragonflies 1

During those strange days with only a wee bit wind, Claudia’s garden was turning into a butterfly and dragonfly romping place.

In the lee of the house, the garden had almost no wind, and suddenly there were a vast number of butterflies and later also dragonflies. I’m not that much into these insects, so if you know the exact species, please let me know.

Hallig Gröde - Sailing

Now that must be fun, low tech sailing with this two master in the wadden sea.

The ship was sailing south of Gröde, most likely heading from the mainland towards the island of Amrum or beyond.

Hallig Gröde - Sunrise Birds

Most of the time I was wondering where all the birds were gone.

During our first visit to Gröde in spring, we were very much impressed by the enormous number of birds on the holm. In comparison, in September they seemed to be almost absent. Well, they are still there, as you can see here: an oystercatcher swarm at sunrise. The stripe of land on the left horizon is Hallig Habel, the wind generators are on the mainland.

Hallig Gröde - Postman

And here we have another canonical picture of Gröde.

The postman – or better postboatman – on his way back from the “post office” to the wharf. Everything, including mail delivery and pickup, on the holms is run at a different pace than our hectic modern life.

Hallig Gröde - Glasswort on Dryland

The hot weather took its toll, slowly drying out the pools in the excavated hole north of the Knudswarft.

And so the glasswort plants, which normally have their “feet” in brackish water, have to cope which the drying mud.

Hallig Gröde - Strange Days 2

The hazy weather continued for several days.

All in all we had one and a half weeks of a very warm, almost hot, late summer. Sunshine, no clouds, no wind, calm and flat sea, haze. More like sunbathing, not photographing. Not your typical North Sea.

Hallig Gröde - Strange Days 1

And then came some strange days, sunny and warm, almost no wind, but extremly hazy.

On this day we neither could see the neighboring holms Langeneß and Oland nor the horizon. Gröde was encased by a grey-white monotonousness.

England - Hever Castle

Back again from the archives, an image of the picturesque Hever Castle in England.

For a kindergarden project of my daughter I was scanning some old photos from our vacation in 2000 and took the opportunity to put up some of them in the new album England.