2014-05-21 51 13

Location

Today's location is in the forest near the "Königsbrücker Heide" (Königsbrück Heath) natural reserve.

Country: Germany; state: Sachsen (Saxony, EU:DE:SN); district: Meißen; municipality: Thiendorf

Weather: sunny, warm

Expedition

Danatar

A Geohashing Day must-go expedition! After work I took my car and left Dresden, reaching Thiendorf easily by Autobahn. Via Liega and Ponickau I went to Naundorf. I parked on Naundorf's only street, which curiously is not called main street. Instead it's Rohda street, after a village that was nearby until the people had to relocate in 1938 in favor of the expansion of a military training ground. That military training ground ("Truppenübungsplatz Königsbrück") was closed after the Soviet troops left in 1992 and, because of the danger of remaining explosives and other weaponry, declared off limit. It became a natural reserve and stayed one even after huge amounts of dangerous material were cleared. The hashpoint is outside the natural reserve, so I was not afraid of stepping on any rusty grenades or something.

After a short walk along fields I reached the forest. Directy at it's edge I heard the tweeting of many little birds coming from a round hole in a tree. Any predator in the forest must have heard them, too, stupid careless kids. I couldn't see any adult birds and continued along the track through the forest. After a while I saw a big bug on the ground (see picture below), only one of many insects that I encountered, I also heard a cuckoo. At some point I left the track and walked along the lined-up conifers towards the hashpoint. Finding the exact spot was difficult, because the trees were in very tight files (sometimes only 10 cm apart) and the GPS coordinates jumped around, but I reached it. I left a marker but forgot to take a panorama picture and I also didn't have any celebratory food. Then I took the nearby track back out of the forest.

When I reached the tweeting birds again I waited to see if the parents would appear. After a while I heard bird sounds and saw woodpeckers. They didn't go near the nest while I was within 20 meters, so I went even further away. I'm not completely sure if they were the parents, but at least I saw one of them within 1 meter of the hole later and in the pictures they have grubs in the beak. While I was waiting I also saw a serin. After a long time I went back to Naundorf and drove back to Dresden.