Alpine Fauna and Flora

While the first picture on the right was indeed made in the Alps and not in a zoo, it does not really belong on this page. At first glance it is a nice marmot picture, but if you examine it closer, you'll notice some litter on the ground. It was taken at an observation platform opposite the Großglockner, Austria's highest mountain. The marmots there live on what the tourists throw over the railing - not what I call wildlife. On the other hand, it is the best marmot photo I have, even though I encountered a couple of these little critters. The one I remember best hopped in front of me on the path for several minutes in a secluded valley above Grindelwald, always keeping a safe distance.

And the one I would prefer not to have met almost caused me a heart attack when I nearly stumbled over it and it began its loud shrieking only a few meters away from me. (It probably does not have the fondest memories of me, neither.) One of its relatives can be seen at the top on the right. It ran parallel to my path and stopped as it saw me. I managed to kneel down, get out my camera and take this photo. Then I changed the lens and pointed it at the marmot. My mistake: I forgot to switch off the autofocus. The whirring sound of the motor frightened the marmot and it ran away. At least I got a photo that nicely demonstrates why the marmots are colored the way they are.

Below are four more pictures showing real wildlife: Two Chamois with a cub near the summit of the Pragser Seekofel (they let me so near that I didn't need a tele lens for this photo), one taking refuge from the hot midday sun, another with a cub running down a slope, and one looking for his colleagues, who were resting on a snow field some 100 meters below.

As I am no botanist, I cannot say much about the following pictures, except that Edelweiss is the rarest of the three plants:

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The Flood of Whitsun 1999

On Friday before Whitsunday 1999, heavy rainfalls combined with a late thaw made streams in the Bavarian Alps rise dramatically. Besides the damage the flood caused to villages, it also literally tore up valleys like the Sägertal near Castle Linderhof. The pictures were taken two weeks after the flood, when workers started to reconstruct the forest road.

This is an extreme example of erosion, but the mountains are constantly in danger of losing their protective cover: the plants. So when you are hiking, please don't take shortcuts if there is a well-trodden path.