Biotope tour to the EGSA annual meeting in Ohlstedt in May 2025
Helmut Kreyerhoff (text & photos)
Arrival with a detour to the Lüneburg Heath
I am in a good mood and looking forward to our upcoming meeting as I set off early in the morning on the A1 motorway towards Hamburg. As usual, I don’t miss the opportunity to explore the area around the conference venue in advance. I make a detour to Pietzmoor near Schneverdingen in the Lüneburg Heath. A circular hiking trail over a wooden footbridge leads to the wetter part of the area. I immediately notice the large number of insects, especially butterflies and dragonflies.
Watch out, adders!
A municipal worker, who is busy repairing the wooden footbridge, comes by and warns me urgently about venomous adders, as I try to capture a pretty damselfly in the vegetation away from the footbridge with the macro. ‘OK, thank you very much!’ I replied and thought to myself: fine, I’ve come to the right place. After less than 20 meters, I spot a high-contrast male adder (Vipera berus) in the still withered grass right next to the footbridge. It has obviously completely ignored the hammering of the workers on the wooden planks and is using the occasional rays of sunshine between the cloud fields to warm itself up. Further on, now on the south side of the moor, I find three strong brown-coloured females in the heather and am completely delighted with my finds.
My further journey takes me to a heath area near Oldendorf, a tip from Daniel Grübner. After a bit of searching, I also make a find here and discover a very strong female adder next to a huge boulder and heather. A little later, a couple pause while walking and stare at the ground. I join them and am allowed to photograph the reptile while I tell them some interesting facts about this lizard. A slow worm (Anguis fragilis) wanted to cross the hiking trail here.
Biotope tour to the Duvenstedter Brook nature reserve
The meeting on Friday and Saturday is already behind us. On Sunday, after a good, hearty breakfast at Landhaus Ohlstedt and saying goodbye to the people who have to make their way home this morning, we look forward to one last highlight of our meeting. We drive out a few kilometers to the north of Ohlstedt. After just one minute, we are out of the big city suburb with direct underground connections and drive along a wooded area for a few kilometers to a car park. Daniel and the other Northern Lights experts Henning Fiets and Lüder Fiets lead us into a beautiful and diverse area of heathland and moorland. With a bright blue sky and still moderate temperatures, we now have a good chance of spotting several species of native reptile fauna along the way. After a few hundred meters, we pass an area that is completely overgrown with low heather. It is said that adders have previously been sighted here in the area bordering the path. Full of excitement, we search the neighboring vegetation. Instead of the adder, we find forest lizards (Zootoca vivipara) on grassy tussocks and on dead wood, typical of such a biotope.
Cranes are seen as lucky charms
In the distance, we hear the excited calls of cranes. And there is already a few flying past us in the air with their typically elegant flight. This is probably a very rare and beautiful experience for most of us. Near the wetlands, a four-spotted damselfly flies around, a common large dragonfly that settles on the top of a weed after hunting flying insects. The flat-bellied damselfly and the large moss dragonfly can also be found there. However, we are particularly interested in the occasional ditches, ponds and pools to the right and left, which are currently still well filled with water, much to the delight of the water frogs and grass frogs living there. We turn off onto a narrow footpath and walk along the Professormoor to a boundary wall.
Hooray, the first Natrix discovery reports
We are often lucky in the neighborhood and discover the extremely fast grass snakes (Natrix natrix) in different age groups and sexes. Despite their maneuverability, we manage to take a few photos of the animals. We also find a slow worm on the embankment. In front of us is a beautiful pond at the forestry depot. A few newts move slowly through the water. The water frogs don’t let us disturb them on the short wooden footbridge over the water. By now it has become quite warm and perhaps that is why we no longer find any grass snakes there. On the rest of the circular route through the nature reserve, we see a few more cranes in the distance. Another pond with lots of dragonflies and frogs makes a very naturally healthy impression.
Once we arrive at the car park, we can look back with satisfaction on almost a dozen sightings of grass snakes.
A big thank you once again to Daniel, Henning and Lüder for this great tour through the diverse Duvenstedter Brook nature reserve.
It was another successful EGSA meeting.
I’m already looking forward to the next one.
Helmut Kreyerhoff
helmutkausb@gmail.com