Fieldwork by Patrick Franke
January 2022The year 2021 ended somewhat unexpectedly sound-wise. From the reeds along a small canalI heard sounds that sounded like the muffled mooing of a cow. It turned out to be NutriasMyocastor coypus.Nutrias are rodents from South America, so they are considered an invasive species in Europe.The populations here are offspring of animals abandoned by …
December 2021This year, actually by chance, I got into a circle of naturalists and outdoor enthusiasts. Until thenI only knew Tom, ornithologist and birder, for a couple of years. But only superficially not to say fromcountless stories about him.In Spring Tom invited me on a hike in his home area and this area quickly became …
October 2021To be somehow bound to your own native region, means of course, that people from the pastpop up here and there (not only in conceivable trivial gossip the mother tells). In most cases,a surprisingly interesting thing, actually. As a person who has always been part of subcultures,such a meeting with ‘people from the past’ …
October 2021The recent history of the Eurasian Wolf Canis lupus in Central Europe, like almost everywhereelse in the world, is also a history of competition, suppression and finally persecution.In superstition, they were portrayed as dangerous to humans directly, they were in fact seenas competitors for food and were therefore killed throughout the area.In addition to …
September 2021Recording sound of a thunderstorm is not an easy thing to do if you value a sound thatis not colored by the reflections of a building or muffled a shelter. There are just too fewdry thunderstorms in the Northern Hemisphere, unfortunately.Tonight there was a really exceptionally long and intense thunderstorm in Leipzig.Since my apartment …
July 2021So, the winners of the British Wildlife Sound Recording Society annual competition 2020were announced. Here are my sound recordings that I had submitted:
July 2021Regular visitors to my blog will know that one of my favourite nature reserves isa former military training area south of Berlin (see: Scorched Earth I)After a massive fire some years back, new flora is now showing up and with it firstlarger fauna. One species was always present even right after the big fire, …