Dripping towards a close

We should have learned from the experiences of the last couple of days: never trust the forecast. Mainly sunny, but perhaps with the occasional shower, they said. Let's go to a lake where we can splash around, look at wildlife, hire a boat and generally enjoy the sun, we said. Fortunately it wasn't far. The sun was shining. The air was warm. There were frogs making that particularly joyous racket that only green frogs can (if you've only every heard a British amphibian chorus, I urge you to try out the continental green frog chorus. Like Lemmy said: if it's too loud, you're too old). Hey, look: there aren't any boats to hire anyway. Never mind, splashing in the moderately warm and delightfully chocolate-soup coloured splash zone is too much fun anyway. Hey, look: loads of orchids and damselflies and things to poke around at, pick up, taste, smell, chuck. This is fun! Oh: check out the big black cloud that's heading... oh. Oh well. Let's go home and ride the ponies instead.

It was fun while it lasted.

Whoever thought this was a good spot for a bench was absolutely correct.

We also thought we'd try a walk along a gentle valley which runs east-west between Oberammergau and Ettal. Reports of nice things (Three-toed and White-backed Woodpeckers, for instance) and a favourable view or three on Google Earth made it seductively interesting. The misty clouds rolling around the scarps made it romantically interesting. The pair of Black Woodpeckers calling in the trees above us made it sound exotically interesting. The drizzle - and then increasingly steady rain - made it, frankly, untenable. I strapped Lissa into the sling and promised to meet the other two at the Ettaler Weidmoos for lunch, then headed east back down the valley for the walk. Rain aside, it was absolutely lovely.

It just gets wetter. And wetter.

And wetter.

Tree Lungwort Lobaria pulmonaria

Romantically mist-clad slopes over the meadows

We ended up at the bog, all arriving fortuitously together and had a drizzled-upon lunch, but then - horrors - the clouds began to roll back and a fragment of blue poked through. That was enough for us: we set out to explore a little of the bog, the girls rejuvenated by the sight of sunshine and the heat on our skin. Indeed it got so warm that Lissa stripped off completely to rush about and chase butterflies. For butterflies there most certainly were. First of all we were visited by a Chequered Skipper, which sunned itself teasingly on various items of clothing. This was then joined by a Mazarine Blue, equally at home on our abandoned pullovers and jackets. The competition spurred the skipper to new heights of daring, landing with increasing confidence on legs, then hands and working round the whole family. Finally, fritillaries put in an appearance - singletons gliding jerkily past us and then several at a time batting around over the flowers. Closer examination proved intriguing: not a species I recognised... but fortunately the trusty field guide put me out of my misery: Bog Fritillary. How appropriate.

Pretty. Soggy.

Mazarine Blue Cyaniris semiargus

Mazarine Blue

Chequered Skipper Carterocephalus palaemon

Skipper raises the stakes

Bog Fritillary Proclossiana eunomia from below

Bog Fritillary from above.

Dactylorhiza c.f. traunsteineri. I think.

Statuesque plant (False Helleborine Veratrum album). Amazing spider! (No, I don't know what it is - yet)

Alpine Bartsia Bartsia alpina

Primula farinosa is an ever-present feature of the bog.

It's beautiful when it's not raining!

Somehow, we managed to save the best for last. Even though it wasn't meant to be the most exciting day - in fact was really only a chance to use our travel cards one more time and ride another cable-car. We drove to Oberammergau for our last full day, to take the Laberbergbahn to the top of the mountain. The day was spectacularly good: blue skies, calm, warm. Just what we'd come to the Alps for in the first place! The journey to the top was smooth, peaceful and sufficiently hair-raising for Na and the view from the top was - frankly - gorgeous. We walked back down to the car through meadows of brilliant flowers, then woods that deserved much more scrutiny than we were able to give them. A place to return to in the fullness of time, I think.

Snowbells were still flowering on the north-facing slopes - the ballerina of the alpine flora

Check out the sedges! There's the odd gentian and Bear's-ear to get past first, of course.

One-flowered Fleabane: common as muck.

A parting view: the path down from the Laber summit leads through the valley running up and right across the middle of the picture. Not too shabby at all.

Voralpen

I feel I should probably rename the blog 'what I did on my holidays' or somesuch nonsense. The winter has been long and wholly lacking in inspiration, the spring has sprung equally uninspiringly and summer once again arrived. Time to get out of this country and see what else there is in this world. So we - temporarily - 'Brexited' (bleagh!) and a couple of hours after leaving Bristol found ourselves in the sizzling sunshine of the foothills of the Alps, on the edge of a small town called Bad Kohlgrub.


The scenery from our holiday flat was suitably grand - traces of snow on the distant mountains, rich green conifer forests on the neighbouring slopes and flower-bedecked hay meadows right outside - more on those later. The air was ringing with the songs of crickets and the mellow clonks of the cow-bells. More on these sounds in a later post.

Looking east across the Murnauer Moos (a whacking great valley bog, not a large deer) to the Alps

For the girls, the best point of all was that the railway line between Oberammergau and Murnau ran just below the house, so the hourly train was visible from the neighbouring bench or the edge of the balcony - not only that, but the existence of an unguarded level crossing just down-line meant that the uphill train had the decency to announce itself with a short blast on the horn a minute or two before passing, leading to wild cries of "Zug! Zug!" and an undignified scramble for the nearest viewing point, often up an unsuspecting parent.

We started out on the Sunday morning, not unreasonably, with some exploration of the immediate surroundings. The day had begun with a pair of Spotted Flycatchers zipping and twirling around the balcony catching sundry unfortunate flies, whilst a Black Redstart scratched out his song on the neighbour's satellite dish rim. A Cuckoo threw in a few exploratory notes just to emphasise the fact that we were no longer at home.

We took a walk along the road to see what the immediate surrounds had in store for us - it proved to be flowers. And what flowers! The hay-meadow just along the road was spectacular: a riot of buttercups, dandelions, Goat's-beard, Red Clover, Yellow-rattle and Marsh Hawk's-beard, spattered with Spreading Bellflower and Broad-leaved Marsh Orchid. Getting past that initial impression took a little while, but was worth it: below and between the immediate eyecatchers were Horseshoe-vetch, Yellow Rock-rose, Ragged-robin, Fairy-flax, Shrubby Tormentil, Kidney-vetch, thyme, Germander Speedwell, Hedge Bedstraw, Lady's Bedstraw, Oxe-eye Daisy, Chalk Milkwort, Thyme Broomrape, Salad-burnet and much, much more. That's without even mentioning the grasses, the sedges, the spike-rushes... We definitely weren't in England any more.

Lissa realising she has the wrong colour clothes on to blend with her surroundings. Yellow is by far the order of the day. In the background is the Hoernle... more below

After some parental brain burn-out (too many plants!), we split up: Na to take Lissa to the flat for her lunchtime nap, Bina and I to head off along a little loop around the back of the farm and see what else we can see. The flora proved equally diverse and interesting: wet field-edges garlanded with the salmon-pink bells of Water Avens, a dry bank with spreading mats of Mouse-ear Hawkweed and thyme, punctured with Heath Sedge and a solitary frond of Moonwort, a spring-head hazed purple with the spears of marsh-orchids.

Moonwort - Botrychium lunaria

Water Avens - Geum rivale

The afternoon was spent on the local hill: the Hoernle. We decided to brave the chairlift to take the effort out of the ascent. It certainly made our journey easier, though trying to pin down a wriggling two-year-old who's bored with the journey and wants to get off now, thankyou - never mind the drop, offers challenges of its own.

We were greeted at the top by a brisk breeze several degrees cooler than the valley below (to the surprise of the children), a neat welcome mat of One-flowered Fleabane and Spring Gentian, and a dramatic view across to the snowy summit of the highest peak in Germany, the Zugspitze. Underfoot were exotica like Hybrid Buttercup, Anemone-leaved Buttercup (cruelly white-flowered, so not offering a clue as to whether one might like butter), Monk's-rhubarb and bewilderingly foreign-looking dandelions - the latter offering some comforting sips to a majestic Swallowtail butterfly.

Spring Gentian - Gentiana verna

Alpine - or Purple - Coltsfoot - Homogyne alpina

Who cares about the view of the mountains...

...when this is clambering over your seat!

The lure of a refreshing Johannisbeerschorle got the better of us all, so we repaired to the conveniently-located Gasthaus, where we could shelter from the wind, sip our drinks and admire Nutcrackers - the bird, not the implement - at point-blank range. Almost cheating to see such goodies with such ease, but take 'em where you find 'em.

Bina's working her way through the European corvidae: just Alpine Chough and Siberian Jay to go now...

Just don't look down, whatever you do...