greater stitchwort can be found inside the nature reserve of the mönchbruch wetlands.
one of the biggest hessian nature reserves is the mönchbruch near mörfelden-walldorf & rüsselsheim - it's got 937 hectares of land to explore - and all of them are packed with rare flora & fauna. these images are from my very first visit at the mönchbruch and ever since then i have been in love with it and have visited a few times by now, because it is a landscape that fascinates & draws me in immensely! situated very closely nearby the frankfurt airport's runway west, though, you will always have to deal with the noise that the planes make departing the airport. surprisingly though, that doesn't diminish the special atmosphere at all.
the wetlands are what the name suggest, wet and moist, due to the many water canals, swamps and regularly flooded meadows. once, the river main had its main bed on the area, sands, clays and gravels still remind you of that history.
over 540 different kinds of plants can be found in the reserve, of which about 60 are actually ones that are close to being extinct. several rare bird species love the place, too, like the red-backed shrike, the kingfisher, the black kite & middle-spotted woodpecker. many water birds use the meadows to bring up their offspring, the common snipe has been spotted a lot, and the grey heron is a constant visitor to the reserve. also inhabitants of this beautiful place are fallow deer, wild boars & nutrias, and even tinier creatures like stag beetles and large marsh grasshoppers are happy to live here. in the evenings you'll encounter about seven different kinds of bats, one of which is the bechstein's bat, a rare and protected critter of the night. so you see, there is lots to witness and look out for, ready to watch and enjoy!
in the beginning of april trees are finally coming around to develop their green leaf crowns and all of nature gets more lush day by day. i love this particular season a lot, after so much grey and bare trees for a couple of months, all the awakening is a welcome sight!
several rivulets and streams feed the marshy & swampy lands inside the mönchbruch, one of which is this one - the geräthsbach. this little stream will later merge with another one called gundbach and turn into the schwarzbach - that one will eventually end up draining into the rhine river. all the streams are meandering beautifully through the territory, sometimes quite hidden away from main hiking paths.
if you ask me what the pipe thingies are inside the stream, i will have to answer you with a wondering facial expression. my guess is that it's got to do something with filtering the water somehow?
a few meters further none of such manmade constructions disrupted the beauty of the watercourse. instead, the sun glistened in the water, birds were chirping manifold and i was closing my eyes and falling in love with spring.
the geräthsbach even washes around a tiny island.
my first impression of the mönchbruch was immediate rapture. it all was so peaceful and gorgeous that day!
the stitchwort again, emitting beautiful white into the green meadows
the trees in the reserve are left behind on purpose, they provide important resources for all kinds of insects ( for example, the aforementioned stag beetle ;D ).
my wood structure loving heart loves all the details in this shot!
these lilac-tinted wood anemones were pretty cute!
this colour was so luminescent 😍
this plant entices you with an iridescent colour change, the older leaves are deep green and the newer ones kind of metallic purple! this is a special plant that can also be eaten - it's ground-ivy! the new leaves are specifically tender and taste like mint, which is a great combination with chocolate - i have tried dipping these leaves into melted chocolate before and devoured them as some kind of self-made 'after eight' and they're freaking delicious! now i want these again, but i am afraid i missed out on the season this year 😅
they have tiny violet blossoms that are hermaphroditic, which means they can self-pollinate. but a lot of the times they have external pollinators helping them to spread, such as bees.
the meadows of the mönchbruch. they are not artificially changed by human hand anymore, fertilization is strictly prohibited in the reserve! the only thing humans are still allowed to do is the mowing of the meadows, which is actually very important here, as some plants need the nutrients that are set free through this practice! the mowing takes place after june 15th, that's to protect the clutch of all the ground-breeding birds that love the high grasses during their upbringing. on these images though, the grass didn't grow high ( yet ).
into the woods! the mönchbruch is a big forest area, too, with many beeches, hornbeams and oaks growing there. and lots of water of course!
a splintered oak tree! probably a lightning bolt went through it. i liked how that made it sculptural somehow!
the sweetest little blossoms: chickweed! chickweed is a very nutritious plant that can be used in salads, but also is known as a healing plant. i have yet to try it out myself, i haven't got a clue what it tastes like!
i absolutely adore their delicate little blossoms.
an old tree covered with tree fungi!
hard to say if this is actually a hornbeam trunk or that of a common beech.
it was a pretty solitary tree, though, standing in a little pine forest.
i just loved how many of these mushrooms colonized this tree!
it's a tinder fungus - a very beneficial mushroom. it can be used as tinder to light fires, but also is used in medicine for its styptic & antiseptic properties! it was also used to produce textiles, but this practice is fairly rare these days. for nature, this mushroom is very important, too, many bugs are profiting from the degradation process of their host tree, and the tree itself is turned into valuable humus.
it's fascinating to me that such a strange little fungus can have such a big impact on the environment and even help humans out!
found a single little violet! this particular violet is called the heath dog violet - it can often be found in hornbeam & oak tree forests and where there are sandy loamy soils.
clear and light-flooded groves, those are often the preferred habitats of the little lilac-coloured violet.
however this concrete element made it to this part of the woods, it certainly served as a great point of interest for this image ;)
it also proved to be a great selfie spot 😜
swampy area that i found nearby.
more ground-ivy - i love their blossoms, they look like little figurines!
a white wood anemone joined the club.
illuminated swamp grass.
the sunlight and how it hit the woods and the swamp ( and cast shadow me ) was wonderful that day! you just really felt the awakening of nature in all your fibers and nerves.
natural barriers - fallen trees and their twigs and branches.
behind the barrier you could find this beautiful scene - proof you sometimes have to shift your position to discover a hidden gem :)
big clump of clayey soil, which was attached to the roots of a fallen tree...
i like the shadow that sort of projects an imagination of the tree roots!
probably the tree that belonged to the root soil clump.
i believe, this bridge doesn't exist anymore, i visited the place several times since this initial trip, and only found that the path had ended here, with no bridge in sight. they are more and more turning the mönchbruch into a highly protected area in which you shouldn't stray from the main paths. which is kinda sad, because somehow the really charming places you won't have the chance to discover anymore, but i also get that this endangered jewel of nature needs its space to preserve itself, in order to continue to exist. if more and more people are trodding through the swamps and woods without any caution & care, the nature will suffer eventually. and since the mönchbruch is so very close to a densely populated area, the danger of man destroying this little paradise is very real. when the covid pandemic began two years ago, people streamed into nature, as it seemed as their only respite while they couldn't meet up with friends and family. and as we all know, people can be ignorant when it comes to following rules ( i sometimes am no exception 😅 ) and they would probably trample all over the place. i reckon that that was one of the reasons why the caretakers of the mönchbruch decided to ward off more areas, so wildlife and plants could recuperate and restore away from the main paths. and if this means that smaller paths with cute bridges have to be dismantled, then this should be a decision that is to be respected.
the geräthsbach looked especially romantic and beautiful here! everything was gorgeously light-flooded, shadows and light in a perfect interplay with each other.
i am glad i got to experience this pathway still before they closed it down.
the bridge helped leading walkers and cyclists to reach the street b486, which cuts through the reserve ( if you cross it, you'll get to a more open landscape of meadows and more gorgeous woods ). this possibility is of course non-existent now, and people have to walk quite a big detour to make it to the other side.
a view into the other direction onto meadows.
this image just gives me immense calm feelings and joy!
i crossed the street to the other side and found myself in a wild garlic-covered beech tree forest! i couldn't believe the amount of wild garlic, never have i ever seen such a wide stretch of ground covered with them! it's not allowed to pick plants inside the reserve, but with these masses, i couldn't help myself to snatch up some leaves for my meals - yes, that's me not following the rules sometimes ;P. the wild garlic growing season is actually my favourite season here in the mönchbruch reserve, because it's just simply gorgeous to witness them creating a carpet of first bright green and then dark green colours on the ground, and when the plants start blossoming, it adds an enchanting white to it all that really conjures up a magical setting!
the open fields i talked about earlier, which are very popular with fallow deer and ground-breeding birds, and of course other animals and birds that use this reserve as their habitat.
on this side of the reserve you have quite a few nameless canals meandering through the woods, explaining why the wild garlic grows so well here!
i love such saturated and waterlogged areas, they look so fresh and juicy!
a little wood pond - a feast for the eyes and my swamp-loving heart.
birch trees can also be found in big amounts here, their white trunks creating a nice contrast always. they were about to develop leaves, too, which you unfortunately can't make out well here.
this little monument kept mystifying me over its purpose, though the coordinates on its base reveal that it's a location column. apparently it's also had a signpost at the top when it was fairly new, but obviously it's not there anymore. the column was created in 1999 by a mason called karl koban, out of sheer passion for his homeland. he wanted to enrich the local landscape with a sculpture that also functioned as an orientation point. curiously, the coordinates are not correct, it seems that they tell of a point about 500 meters away from the column.
as the sun was about to set, the woods were drenched in beautiful golden light, illuminating the fresh spring greens and creating a magical play of colours! the mönchbruch has plenty of these little canals meandering through its territory, turning this landscape into a place of sorcery and enchantment.
the bokehs and sunspots made me think of little wood sprites flitting through the air ❤
soaking in all the colours and serenity of nature...
... falling in love with the landscape...
... and vowing to visit in other seasons, too, to experience all its faces!
a landscape that should be taken care of and respected, preserving it for the beauty and respite it is to many living beings. a truly wild place in the middle of an increasingly louder & populous urban environment.
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