Tags
birds, Black Forest, Ernest Hemingway, fungi, holiday, lichen, memorials, moss, Nutcracker, Otto von Bismarck, red squirrels, Triberg, waterfall, wildflowers
On our second full day on holiday we thought we would go and see the Triberg waterfall which we were informed is the highest waterfall in Germany. (In fact, it isn’t as Rothbach Waterfall in Bavaria is the highest with a single, vertical drop of 470 metres.) We had a short walk through the town to the nature park entrance where we were able to get free entry by using the guest-card that the hotel had given us on our arrival.
Just a few minutes walk brought us to the waterfall.
The waterfall is a series of seven cascades falling 160 metres into the valley.
The waterfall can be heard in the town.
The paths and bridges have been carefully designed to enable everyone to see the falls clearly.
I didn’t just photograph the waterfall. There were plenty of plants that interested me, some I recognised and others I still cannot put a name to.
Touch-me-not Balsam (Impatiens noli-tangere)
Fungus
Lichen
Unidentified yellow flower
Slime mould
Hoof fungus (Fomes fomentarius) ?
Orange-coloured fungus.
Indian Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera)
Wood Sage (Teucrium scorodonia)
Wood Sage flower spike
We also saw glimpses of Red Squirrels, which are not rare in Germany, but they were too quick for me and I was unable to photograph one.
I was very pleased that I managed to photograph a Nutcracker, a bird from the crow family. They are one of the smallest crows at 12.5 inches long, even smaller than a Jackdaw, and they were moving about quickly in the undergrowth feeding newly fledged young.
Nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes) on a tree-stump
This is the above photo which has been cropped
Nutcracker
Nutcracker
Nutcracker
Only one of those photos was cropped though I had to use the zoom on my camera to its fullest extent for the rest!
There were a few commemorative plaques placed on the rock face; this one is for Otto von Bismarck.
Bismarck commemoration
This one is for Ernest Hemingway
On the right are his dates of birth and death under a note saying that Ernest Hemingway visited Triberg in the Black Forest in August 1922 where he indulged in his passion for fishing. There is a quote from ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ on the left where he talks about a trout-fishing trip to Triberg.
We enjoyed our walk through the forest and before returning to our hotel, indulged in some more coffee and cake!
Thanks for visiting!
A Suffolk Lane 
Feels a lot like a Northwest hike – except there are more evergreens here
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Thank-you Mark.
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I love the slime mold.
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Thank-you Maria!
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Sounds and looks like an interesting day. All those boards walks would have suited me.
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Thank-you Susan. The well-made paths and board walks made the going very easy.
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Wow, Clare, your photo are amazing! What a beautiful place, so lush and green. The Nutcracker tree stump reminds me of snakes. Thanks for sharing! Enjoy your week. xo
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Thank-you Jill. I loved that tree stump too! I hope you are having a good week as well. xo
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Thanks for bringing us along again. Its been years since I visited the Black Forest, but it has very medieval feel to it! You expect the Brothers Grimm to pop up at any moment, right? Great Photos Clare!
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Thank-you Johanna! Yes, you’re right about The Brothers Grimm. My husband visited The Black Forest when he was 18 years old and he thought then that if trolls existed here was the place they would be likely to live!
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What a verdant forest and do the falls always run that strongly or had there recently been rain? Great photos!
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Thank-you! From the photos I’ve seen of the falls I think they run strongly most of the time as rainfall is generally quite high there. It was raining hard the evening we arrived!
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It was nice of them to build the walks and bridges. That’s a beautiful waterfall and just seeing it would have made the trip worthwhile for me.
The lichen could be a rock disk lichen (Lecidella stigmatea) or a tile lichen (Lecidea tessellate). It’s all in how the black fruiting bodies are shaped-convex or concave.
The orange fungus might be orange crust fungus (Stereum complicatum) but I don’t know what grows there. I think you’re right about the hoof fungus.
The unknown yellow flowers look a lot like some of our asters but I’ve never heard of a yellow aster.
This looks like it was a great trip. I’d love to go there.
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Thank-you Allen. It was a wonderful trip and we wished we could have stayed longer. I thought the yellow flowers had an ‘aster’ look about them but as I always have to try to keep up with Richard and Elinor on our walks I couldn’t get a better photo or one of the leaves. I saw a plant on the blog of a lady from Ljubljana in Slovenia last week that looked a little like my photo and that was a yellow aster Tephroseris longifolia pseudocrispa. I’ll never know now! My fungi and lichen shots are never detailed enough through lack of time and I always manage to not photograph the part of the flower or fungus that is the key to its ID! Thank-you for the ID suggestions – I have not much of an idea of the plants that grow there as it is quite a bit further south than where I live in England. It’s many miles from the sea and is upland forest too.
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The yellow Tephroseris longifolia pseudocrispa aster is really unusual.
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It is and there are similarities to the plant I saw but I can’t be sure of more than that.
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How nice that you included a bird Clare! The forest looks so cheerful! 🙂
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Thank-you HJ! It was a beautiful forest full of birdsong. The Nutcracker was the only bird I was able to photograph as it wasn’t as shy as the rest!
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Your photos of the waterfalls were excellent, and I loved the nutcracker!
I also loved all the other photos which added a lot of context to the area, I’m beginning to understand why it got the name Black Forest, as the trees grow let very little light through to the forest floor. It reminds me of some parts of Michigan where the trees have been left to grow naturally.
As a side note, Ernest Hemingway spent a few summers fishing northern Michigan, so I have fished some of the same water that he did. I’d love to follow his tracks to the Triberg area as well.
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Thank-you Jerry! Yes, the forest is very dark and without the trails I think I’d get lost very quickly! It was interesting staying at the same hotel that Hemingway used. He used to bring his catch back to the hotel and get them to cook it for him.
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Beautiful photos and coffee and cake well earned 🙂
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Thank-you! We got accustomed to cake every day and missed it when we returned home.
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Wonderful and that nuthatch is gorgeous!
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Thank-you Chiara!
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No wonder you felt like you had had a great holiday! And bravo on capturing that nuthatch – it is always a thrill to achieve success with bird photography, isn’t it. 🙂
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Thank-you Liz! I was so pleased when I managed to get a few photos of the Nutcracker! I think they are used to people wanting to photograph them though.
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Impressive shots – and botanical knowledge – as always! The waterfall certainly puts the Ingleton Waterfalls Walk in its place – and dare I say that I thought the Nutcracker was sweet? 🙂 I hope the cake was Schwarzwald kuchen?
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I thought the Nutcracker looked sweet too, unlike most of the crows that live here! We all had some Schwarzwalder Kuchen at some point in the holiday but there were so many other luscious cakes to chose from!
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Beautiful nature photos. I like the Ernest Hemingway plaque and the nutcracker. Well spotted.
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Thank-you! It was a very beautiful place.
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I love a good waterfall! And they have allowed such good access to it–that’s very cool. My favorite photos are the ones of fungus–I love the variety and oddness.
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Thank-you Kerry. I am fascinated by fungus but can identify very few of them.
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Love all the foliage and beauty there!
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Thank-you! It was beautifully green.
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Sounds and resembles a fascinating day. Each one of those sheets strolls would have suited me…
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Beautiful scenery and a literary nod, what could be more satisfying! I love your eye for the details as well as the larger picture.
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Thank-you Ste.
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First off, a happy St. Clare’s day to you! 🙂
I think the nutcracker is pretty – crows are interesting. (if you ever can photograph a nightingale, I’d be thrilled to see it!)
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Thank-you Lisa! It had slipped my mind it was St Clare’s day today. Crows are so intelligent and the Nutcracker had a particularly bright expression in its eye! I would love to be able to photograph a nightingale. I have seen one at our local bird reserve but that was many years ago. They are such shy skulking creatures and sing from the depths of thick undergrowth. They are also becoming scarce now because the habitat where they like to nest and feed is being done away with. Many people don’t like the look of scrubby undergrowth with lots of brambles! When I first moved to East Anglia and lived in one of the towns I used to listen to nightingales singing all night in the early summer. I thought I had moved to Paradise! I haven’t heard one for a long time now.
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Wow wonderful shots of nature in Germany.
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Thank-you!
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Such a gorgeous and dramatic waterfall! I was very interested in your unidentified yellow flower because it looks very similar to a plant I bought recently in Florida for my new garden around the gazebo we had built. It is called Tractor Seat (not sure of the latin name) but I believe it is a type of Ligularia. If you google tractor seat plant ligularia you should see it there…let me know what you think but it looks very much the same. xx
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Ligularia! I was trying to think of the flower it reminded me of! The Tractor Seat leaves are different but the flowers are so much alike that I might be inclined to think it is a type of wild Ligularia. Thank-you Kate! xx
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Yes I think so too! 🙂
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The photos are beautiful, Clare. Thank you for bringing us along on this trip! The Touch-Me-Not is a related species of a plant I knew from back east that goes by the common name of Jewel Weed, Impatiens capensis. The seed pods, when ripe, explode upon touching. Seeing that plant brought back pleasant memories from childhood!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impatiens_capensis
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Thank-you Lavinia. Yes, all the balsams do that which is why we in Britain are waging a war against Indian Balsam which is taking over our river banks. Everyone used to grow ‘Busy Lizzies’ in their gardens and as pot plants when I was young and I loved popping their seedpods too! I have seen photos of Jewel Weed – a very pretty plant!
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Wow love the photo
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Thank-you Ian!
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I love waterfalls I used to believe fairies lived near waterfalls 😊.
Wonderful photos
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Thank-you Charlotte.
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GReat pictures, love the Nutcrackers!
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Thank-you Simon. I was so pleased to see them!
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I’ve always wanted to travel there…hopefully one day I will get the opportunity. Gorgeous scenery and your photos are wonderful!
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Thank-you Sheryl. It is a beautiful part of a great country.
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I had no idea there was a bird called a Nutcracker. You’re clever to have captured such good shots of it. Forest birds can be difficult to photograph. They don’t like to keep still for me, anyway! The Triberg Falls pictures are very impressive. Well done! They’re beautiful. The greenery reminds me a little of the Binna Burra forests here. Much colder in the Black Forest I expect though! 🙂
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The Black Forest was quite chilly when we arrived – only about 12 C! I was very pleased to be able to photograph the Nutcracker but I think the birds are so used to seeing people walking through the forests that they aren’t as shy as they might be normally.
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