Don't panic and the case of the missing fruit

My second trip to Berlin this year, took me to Spandau, the north west region of the city. My flight from Liverpool was full, and was on time and knowing where I was going certainly helps as I was away from the airport and on the S9 train within minutes. I had first called at the Tourist Information desk to buy a Berlin welcome card, that allows me to travel anywhere in Inner and outer Berlin for the five days I was there. I arrived at Rathaus Spandau and it was only a ten minute walk from the U Bahn or 3 stops on the 130 bus to my hotel. Berlin has wonderful street and place names, I was staying in Steegefelder Strausse, and my train interchange was Jungfernheide.

My hotel was comfortable, but I was wondering how I was going to manage with the receptionist, who knew as much English as I know German. I managed to get the key to my room and looked through my German phrase book to get me through the week.

My first morning I started with Spandauer Forst, with a 9 stop bus journey on the M45 bus to Johannesstift. I took only a few steps into the Forest and there was a mass of bird calling, most notably nuthatch. In the huge forested area I encountered three species of woodpecker, great, middle and lesser spotted. Other delights were hawfinch, bullfinch, crossbill and siskin, crested and marsh tit. I saw both common treecreeper and short toed treecreeper, as well as the more common species like blue tit, great tit and the delightful white headed long tailed tit.  It is quite easy to lose yourself in the many paths, although it was slow going as there were constant tap, tap, tapping from the branches. Hoping I might see a black woodpecker I mostly saw great spotted and it wasn’t always easy spotting them. I was walking down one path and suddenly saw a sound of wild boar trotting towards me, I tried to keep calm, thought of Corporal Jones and looked around for a tree to climb. Fortunately the male boar stopped after seeing me and his band followed suit. After staring at each other for a few seconds he turned right and off down another path, followed by his piglets. I was rather fortunate as there weren’t any trees that looked climbable.

This wild boar was behind a fence

I came across a small lake called Laßzinssee but not too much bird life apart from Mallards and Coots, viewed from a raised platform. I followed the path called Berliner Mauer Weg, the Berlin Wall Trail, which I strolled along for a while, keeping a watchful eye for wild pigs. I heard some calling and couldn’t make out what it was before looking up I saw about 100 migrating cranes, flying high above the tallest pylons I have ever seen. I made my way back to the bus terminus, after a full day in the forest.

My next day I went to Flughafensee, next to Tegel Airport which is Berlin’s main airport, with planes taking off every 2 minutes. It was quite a large lake but not much on show apart from mallards, cormorants and the odd heron. I did manage to see a green woodpecker in the wooded area.  I walked up to the U Bahn and went two stops to Tegel, where Berlin’s second biggest lake is. Tegel See is a wonderful place which during the summer must be just teeming with visitors. Alongside the lake is Tegel Forst, where I saw the usual woodland birds I saw the day before. On the lake were hundreds of coots and mallards, with little grebe, great crested grebe. Also many diving ducks, tufted ducks and pochards mainly but small numbers of goldeneye too. Nearer to the town were mute swans and most of the Canada geese I saw were ringed.

Mute swan on Tegel See

I can’t ever remember eating an apple before for breakfast, but I did on Thursday. I recall from the Peckers and Lizsters tour that the lunch was made up from the breakfast buffet. I couldn’t ask the waitress if this was allowed because she couldn’t speak any English. I decided to raid the fruit bowl instead rather than make up sandwiches. I took a banana and apple and put the banana  in the pocket of my jumper whilst the waitress wasn’t looking. I tried to do the same with the apple but realised hawkeyed Heidi had spotted me  and I then modified the action to start eating it instead. Maybe because there were no banana skins or apple cores on my empty breakfast plate previous days, she had cottoned on to what I was doing.

Later, minus an apple, I wanted to try Krumme Lanke again, after visiting the area earlier in the year, and I started out earlier. I ended up arriving late after missing my stop at Fehrberliner Platz, thinking I should travel to Hermannplatz.  I was just taken in by the Berlin rush hour because every available space was taken on the train, sitting and standing. The birds around Krumme lanke, with a wooded area surrounding  the lake were numerous. In February I saw the black woodpecker, but not so lucky on this occasion. Lots of great spotted and the odd middle spotted. On the lake were mandarins, mallards, pochards, tufted ducks and cormorants, also great crested grebe in winter plumage. Another lake about twice the size, Schlachtensee, was close by and it took about two hours to walk round. It was getting dark as I made my way back to the U bahn, travelling through my favourite Onkle Toms Hutte station. The English translation is Uncle Tom’s Cabins. A local landlord built cabins for his guests to shelter from the rain in his beer garden in the 19^th century. They don’t have station names that that where I live.

The picturesque Schlachtensee

My last day, with the fruit bowl having disappeared at breakfast, I checked out of my Hotel and travelled on the S bahn to Tiergarten close to the Brandenburg gates. The park is huge in the centre of Berlin, with a number of small ponds with mallards and mandarin ducks resident. Last time I was fortunate to see a goshawk and I was hoping I would be lucky again as I only had about 2 hours to find them. I was in the park about 30 seconds and a huge female goshawk flew close by and perched on a branch, which had me scrambling for my bins. A couple of cyclists also stopped to take a look. A great view and then it flew out of sight. Sitting on a bench in the park, I saw bird behaviour that was just great. There seemed to be a small patch that many birds were attracted to. The pecking order seemed to be blackbird, nuthatch, tree sparrow, great tit and blue tit. The many nuthatches seemed to take it out on the great tits. I later encountered a number of finches, including hawfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch, goldfinch and siskin.

I made my way to Schoenefeld Airport, after a fabulous few days, everything was on time and even the budget airline were following the German example of efficiency. My bus home was running 20 minutes late, a reminder I was back in Britain.

Rob