🧱🏘 Civilisation!

⛪️🔔🏖 Last but not least, I'll show you human civilization. There are three churches and the island bell, which you can hear ringing in the video. There are numerous restaurants and a few souvenir shops. There are two grocery stores and a 24-hour store with vending machines in the town hall building. Beach chairs are available on the beach, which you must reserve.

✨️😁🌊 You can also see my soft face on my first day on the island (for comparison, see my rough face after 10 days in the previous post).

🪶📃🕰 Life and history of Baltrum

📖🫅🗺 Baltrum is the smallest of the East Frisian Islands in the North Sea. It was first mentioned in 1398, when Widzel tom Brok gave the island – then called "Balteringe" – to Duke Albert of Bavaria and later received it back as a fief. The name "Baldatringe" appeared even earlier, in the 11th century. Ancient writers may have known of it even in the 1st century AD.

🎣🦭🛶 In the past, the sea often threatened the island’s small population. Around 1700, most people lived from fishing and hunting. Villages were sometimes abandoned because of shifting sand or storm damage, such as the great storm of 1825. From 1870, sea walls and dikes were built to protect the land.

🫧🌊🔔 Baltrum became a seaside resort in 1876. The Old Island Church from 1826 is one of its landmarks, with the famous "Island Bell" from a Dutch shipwreck. As visitor numbers grew, the Large Island Church was built in 1930, and the Catholic St. Nicholas Church followed in 1957.

🌳🌹🌿 A small highlight is the Rose Garden between the two main villages, cared for by volunteers and known as Germany’s smallest spa park. There are beautiful figures and the path is made of shells.

🐴🚴‍♀️🛴 Baltrum has no cars or motorcycles. People travel by horse-drawn carriage, bicycle, e-bike, or e-scooter, giving the island its calm and relaxed atmosphere.

💫🦥🐾 My plush son Vincent misses Baltrum at least as much as I do!

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🐯🔥 By day 10, it was obvious that I'd been on the move the whole time. The sun, the salty wind, and the exertion of hiking a total of 200 kilometers were clearly visible on my face. Tanned leather, but that sparkle in my eyes – a wild man!

🌳🌿 I immersed myself deeply in the nature of this island world, regardless of whether it rained or the night blinded me. I persevered exactly as long as necessary. After returning home, I hobbled for six weeks because of a stress fracture. But it was worth it!

❤️‍🩹🪺 But why did I actually return to this place, even though I was always here with my family, who had caused me so much pain in my life?

🧠🫧 One of the hardest challenges after psychological or emotional abuse is learning how to live with the memories I shared – especially the beautiful, powerful moments that once felt so meaningful. These memories are often tied to a relationship that now casts a shadow over them. What once felt precious can now seem strange, heavy, or distant – as if it no longer truly belongs to me.

🤲✨️ A key step in healing is to look at these memories in a new light – not by hiding them away, but by taking them back. When I put my own presence at the center, I free the experience from the old bond. I take it back into myself – as part of my wholeness.

🎒🥾🗺 Sometimes it helps to return to familiar places. This time not in the company of the past, but alone, and on purpose – for me. To feel again, to see again – and to meet myself again. Because the connection that matters most now is the one I have with me.

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🌬⏳️🌊🌱 Elemental forces!

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🕳🐇 Follow the rabbit!

🥰 When I was on Baltrum in May, I also saw some young rabbits. They're so cute! I photographed one (picture 3).

🐰 European Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) were introduced to the East Frisian Islands early on. On Baltrum, the species has been recorded since around 1700. A regulation from 1869 ordered their extermination, which caused populations on several islands – including Baltrum – to disappear by the end of the 19th century.

🐰 Rabbits were released again only in 1962. Today, at least 2,000 animals live there on average. Some are descendants of escaped domestic rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus domesticus), but over time the natural fur color of wild rabbits has prevailed. As on other East Frisian Islands, Baltrum also has animals with different fur colors. Black rabbits are called "pastors".

🐰 Rabbits have a strong influence on the island’s ecology: their digging and burrowing loosen the soil, create open patches, and thus promote a greater variety of animal and plant species. In older dune areas, this can start new succession processes, increasing both landscape and biological diversity.

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🕊🔭🐒 I observed some birds!

🪶 In the partially flooded salt marshes, numerous black-headed gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) gathered to feed. Their cries could be heard for kilometers.

🪶 On a sea buckthorn bush, a male white wagtail (Motacilla alba) in breeding plumage is perched. In non-breeding plumage, adult birds lack the black markings on the head.

🪶 If you got too close to the Eurasian oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus), you immediately felt a pang of guilt. Their piping calls have something reproachful in their tone.

🪶 Common pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) can be encountered everywhere. The colorful males are often heard calling, while the hens try to remain inconspicuous with their chicks.

🪶 A barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) is nesting in a shelter. I remember that they nested in exactly the same place back in my childhood.

🥚 A mysterious egg! Which dinosaur laid this?

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🌊✨️ At the beach of Baltrum, the sea washed up the delicate skeleton of Echinocardium cordatum, a heart urchin. Its sharp spines are gone, leaving only the pale, fragile shell with fine patterns.

🫧🤍 The heart urchin lives under the sea, buried in soft sand or mud, up to 15 centimeters deep. It uses its small spines to dig and feeds by filtering tiny food particles like the decomposing remains of organisms and plants (detritus) from the sand around it.

👽🪸 Sea urchins may look very alien at first glance, yet they are actually more closely related to us humans than to snails or insects. This is because sea urchins – just like starfish – belong to the echinoderms.

🪞🤔 If you only look at their appearance, you might think: Wait a minute! Starfish and sea urchins look nothing like most animals. Many animals – including humans – have two mirror-image halves (bilateral symmetry). Echinoderms, however, are radially symmetrical, usually with five identical sections. That might make it seem like they’re even less related to us than snails or insects, which also have two symmetrical sides.

🧬🔬 But appearances can be misleading. Echinoderms, like all vertebrates, belong to the deuterostomes. Snails and insects, on the other hand, are part of the protostomes. A key clue: echinoderms are bilaterally symmetrical in their larval stage. It’s only later in life that they develop their characteristic radial symmetry.

👄♻️ The fundamental difference between protostomes and deuterostomes shows up very early in embryonic development: in deuterostomes, the first body opening (the blastopore) becomes the anus, and the mouth forms later. In protostomes, it’s the other way around – the blastopore develops into the mouth.

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🌳🌲 On Baltrum, there are more trees than one might think!

There are downy birch forests (Betula pubescens), oak forests (Quercus), pine forests (Pinus), mixed forests, deciduous forests, coniferous forests – you can find spruces (Picea abies), woolly creeping willows (Salix repens) – many other willows – many sea buckthorn shrubs (Hippophae rhamnoides) and so on and so forth. Looking up, you might also spot a European mistletoe (Viscum album).

From time to time, you can also just try something… birch seeds or delicious pine cones. Exquisite! All completely natural, without car or industrial emissions! 👨‍🍳😋

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🌸🌼🪻 Baltrum has many flowers for you!

(1) Dune pansy (Viola tricolor maritima)
🌿 A maritime form of the wild pansy growing in sandy soils near the sea. I think it's the most beautiful of all the island flowers!

(2) Mouse-ear hawkweed (Hieracium pilosella)
🌿 A creeping perennial, frequent in dry grassland and sandy soils.

(3) Sea rocket (Cakile maritima)
🌿 A salt-tolerant plant of sandy beaches and dunes. A pioneer plant important in dune formation. I saw many, but only one was blooming.

(4) Narrowleaf trefoil (Lotus tenuis)
🌿 A low-growing legume with slender leaves and small yellow flowers, thriving on dry or sandy soils, including coastal grasslands.

(5) Oakes’s Evening-primrose (Oenothera oakesiana)
🌿 A coastal biennial with large yellow flowers that open in the evening, adapted to sandy dune habitats.

(6) Small bugloss (Anchusa arvensis)
🌿 A bristly annual with small bright blue flowers, typically found on sandy or disturbed ground.

(7) Sea milkwort (Lysimachia maritima)
🌿 A succulent coastal plant with fleshy leaves and pinkish-purple sepals, adapted to salty shorelines and salt marshes.

(8) Sea thrift (Armeria maritima)
🌿 A hardy coastal perennial, often found in the salt marshes.

(9) Ragged-robin (Silene flos-cuculi)
🌿 A delicate wildflower of damp meadows, with deeply cut pink petals that give it a ragged, star-like appearance.

(10) Common starwort (Stellaria graminea)
🌿 A slender wildflower, common in meadows and along paths.

(11) Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum)
🌿 A fragrant climbing shrub often found in hedgerows and woodland edges.

(12) Yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus)
🌿 A large wetland iris with bright yellow flowers, common in marshes and along water edges.

(13) Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris)
🌿 A tall, airy umbellifer with delicate white flower clusters.

(14) Lilac (Syringa species)
🌿 There are many cultivated and hybrid forms of lilac. This one smelled really good!

📖🔍 I was able to identify the species based on its appearance, habitat and the species list of the East Frisian Islands (Niedringhaus, Haeseler, Janiesch).

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🌿🤷‍♂️ I am not entirely sure which ferns I photographed here. Entering the dunes is prohibited, so I could only take close-up shots of the individuals at the edge of the path. The close-ups are probably of broad buckler-fern (Dryopteris dilatata). The last photo with the small mini ferns shows the unmistakable common polypody (Polypodium vulgare).

📖 The following fern species live on Baltrum:

🌿 Lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina)

🌿 Narrow buckler-fern (Dryopteris carthusiana)

🌿 Broad buckler-fern (Dryopteris dilatata)

🌿 Male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas)

🌿 Oak fern (Gymnocarpium dryopteris)

🌿 Royal fern (Osmunda regalis)

🌿 Common polypody (Polypodium vulgare)

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🪸 In my hand, I’m holding a piece of bladderwrack (Fucus vesiculosus), a seaweed commonly found along the Wadden Sea coast. The small, round bladders are not fruits but flotation organs. They help the seaweed stand upright in the water so its flat fronds can catch as much sunlight as possible. This is essential for photosynthesis – the process of turning light energy into nutrients.

🌊🫧 The bladders are filled with a mixture of gases. This is mainly oxygen, which the seaweed produces during photosynthesis, and nitrogen, which diffuses in from the surrounding seawater. Carbon dioxide, which the seaweed needs to grow, is almost absent because it is used up immediately. Thanks to this high oxygen content, the bladders provide enough buoyancy to keep the seaweed floating, allowing it to capture as much light as possible even at high tide or in murky waters.

🧫🔬 From a biological point of view, Fucus vesiculosus is a brown alga. It belongs to a group called the Fucales within the family Fucaceae. Even though it looks like a plant and makes its own food through photosynthesis, it is classified in a broader group called Stramenopiles, which also includes diatoms (tiny plankton) and some organisms that don’t photosynthesise at all. How exactly brown algae fit into the tree of life is still being studied, and researchers continue to discuss their relationship to other algae and to the ancestors of land plants.

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