Favourite Mammals

When I was looking on my hard disc for some photos of a very special species of mammal to show you (I will show it to you another time), I realized: I haven’t shown you any photos of one of my favourite mammals here! But that’s changing at once! Here they are – Long-eared Hedgehogs… Looking at the photos, it is easy comprehensible, why it has this name. They are very cute little guys, quite widespread in desert-like areas and they can ran very fast.

Actually, I connect a very special experience with my first encounter with this species. It was in Turkey in 2009: next to the Syrian border, the turkish military took us in custody at night and brought us to the General. We had to answer a lot of questions, but after few hours they let us go. Just two kilometers from the barack, a Long-eared Hedgehog ran over the street. Immediatly I made a full braking and tried to see it again. However, it had ran that fast, that I couldn’t see it any more. It has taken five years until I saw this species again…

Long-eared Hedgehog – Eigentlicher Ohrenigel – Hemiechinus auritus

And again, there was a quite strange adventure while this encounter. At night, I lay in front of the car to photograph the hedgehog. Daniel H. was standing next to me. A car drove by and broke abruptly. The driver got out of the car, walked to Daniel and passing me, I said “Здравствуйте” (Hello). Hearing me talking, he was terrified (no, it was not because of my bad pronounciation). Actually, he thought, Daniel would have driven over me…

Photographers do strange things, don’t they?!

Long-eared Hedgehog – Eigentlicher Ohrenigel – Hemiechinus auritus

Beautiful Wild Europe (BWE) – The project

Thailand, USA, Australia, New Zealand… some typical holiday destinations for many people. It is hip to go there, to be able to talk with the others who have been there. Reasons to visit these countries are often the amazing landscape and nature. At the same time, few people are aware of the beautiful wilderness in Europe, of the breathtaking landscapes, of the very special animals and the beautiful flowers.

For this reason, I thought about a project for a long time: I want to show this beauty, to make people aware, that it is not really necessary to travel always that far. To show that the beautiful places are right in front of our door or not far away. And to show, what we lost already and what we will loose, if we proceed in our way of life.

Within the scope of this project, I will present different areas in Europe, special animals or plants or just special places. I already started with some posts – and I will proceed.

Maybe, you get inspired by these places and next time, it is not Vietnam but the Balkan you travel to!

 

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