Kitty's Corner

Ahhhh, summer. I love the warmth, the sunshine, the fantastic light there is, both in the mornings and in the evenings. And of course I love the fact that summer is the time of year, where I have the longest time off from work - usually three weeks in a row.

And summer has all the bugs and bees a macro photographer can dream of.



Here's a couple of busy bees buzzing around.



I hope you enjoy your summer just as much as I do - (or the winter for the ones who live on the other side of the world).

One of the greatest things about summer (except for the great opportunities to take macro photos of bugs) is that it's season for strawberries.

(Is it just my imagination, or does this berry look weird??)


I love the rich taste of a dark red, juicy strawberry! :yum:

Lots of people here eat them with cream and sugar, but I prefer them like they are, no sugar, no cream or milk to drown the sweet taste of strawberries.

My grandparents had a strawberry field when I was a kid. My grandmother gave me a large bowl and asked me to go out and pick some berries that we could eat for dessert. I was allowed to eat all the strawberries I wanted to, but she always sent me off with the words: "Don't forget to put some in the bowl as well!" I loved my grandmother!



I eat strawberries almost every day during the few weeks it's possible to buy the Danish strawberries.

:yum:


- I wish you all a great weekend!

Yesterday, the 23rd of June, was Midsummer Eve in Denmark. We call it "Sankt Hans Aften" (St. John's Eve), and we celebrate it with big gatherings in parks and places.

In the end of the evening we light bonfires and send the witches off to Bloksbjerg, the mountain 'Brocken' in the Harz region of Germany where the great witch gathering is being held on this day.

Here's the witch before the bonfire is lit:


And here she has taken off:


It was great weather in Denmark yesterday, which is why there were so many people gathered. It took me 10 minutes to get all the way down to the bonfire.


Happy midsummer, everybody - or midwinter, depending on where you are.

I love Zoos. When I travel I almost always visit the local Zoo if there is one, and Hamburg has one. :yay: They don't call it a Zoo though, the name of it is "Hagenbeck Tierpark", and it's a very big area.

Hagenbeck Tierpark is one of the oldest Zoos in Europe, and it was the founder Carl Hagenbeck who invented the "bar-less cages". That means that the animals are not behind bars, but mostly in areas surrounded by water or just a moat. Some of them even walk around on the lawns. That means you can watch the animals without looking at stupid bars!


All kinds of birds are walking around freely on the lawns.

The Zoo have more than 200 different species, and the garden is so pretty to take a walk in, even though it shows that it's old.

See? These ring-tailed lemurs were jumping around, and these two sat right in front of me. No cage, no bars, I could touch them if it had been allowed. But it wasn't, so I didn't. Aren't they just cute?


They also have this huge tropical zoo, which is simply amazing.

All kinds of lizards and snakes, beetles and other creepy-crawly.

(Only bad thing was that it wasn't allowed to use a flash when taking pictures, which means that I couldn't get as many good shot as I wanted to. *pouts*)

The coolest thing about the Zoo was that it was allowed to feed the animals. You were allowed to bring vegetables yourself (which I hadn't, of course), or buy some in the Zoo. I bought a box of "pills" and a bag of mixed vegetables.


The elephants got most of what I bought. I simply reached out a carrot or another vegetable, and the elephant stretched out its trunk and grabbed it. The little pills - I poured them into my hand, held it out, and the elephant sucked them up the trunk and blew them into its mouth afterwards.
That was awesome!!

There was one thing about the Tierpark that could be better though. The possibility of buying proper food. There were quite a few shops there, and they all sold the same food: Sausages, french fries and ice cream. That's simply not good enough!


If I were to rate the Zoo I'd give it out of 6. (The missing one is because of the food!)