As I mentioned
in my first post about the amazing series of tubes that bring water to Vienna, the Wasserleitung travels all the way up into the mountains. Along with a large group of mostly russian and bulgarian speaking companions (english very much not the majority language on that hike!) who all wanted a nice Sunday stroll, a month or so ago I set out to walk to the source of one of the big pipes that ensure we have tasty water to drink in the city. It's an easy hike, following the valley cutting through the mountains, rather than going up any off the limestone giants themselves. As most of the hike was along the valley floor, I haven't got too many photos to show you that I think are that impressive. But I did experiment a bit with some long exposures to capture the cool wide mountain stream we encountered further up.
This stream was obviously textbook habitat for a bird that is rather elusive in Britain,
the dipper. I found a whole nest of these interesting streambirds, which like to dive messily in and out of fast flowing streams, and are apparently unimaginatively called 'Wasseramsel' or 'Water-blackbirds' in German. I was very excited to see one, on family holidays in the UK we were always being told that 'there might be dippers about' but I cannot once recall actually seeing one. After getting used to the idea that these birds are mostly invisible, it is a little puzzling to have several of them hopping and flying around with noisy abandon next to one's seat on the pebbles of the riverbed!
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| A dipper! Top left. |
Here's the tiny collection of pictures in full!
Der Tom
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