🧱🏘 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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🕳🐇 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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🤔 What do you think I’m holding in my hand?

🔍 If you’re thinking of a seaweed, you’re already halfway there! But apart from its branching structure, there’s not much of the seaweed left to see. That’s because it has been colonized and completely covered by a colony of tiny animals! These are moss animals (bryozoans), more specifically Electra pilosa.

🏘🦠 Moss animals usually form colonies (zoaria) made up of many individual animals (zooids). Each zooid consists of a soft body and a protective shell.

🪸🤝🪸 Within colonies, there is a division of labor. Strongly reduced individuals form stalk segments, tendrils, or root-like filaments. Other zooids produce reproductive cells – still others become "nurse" zooids or develop into bird’s-head-shaped avicularia or vibracularia, which prevent other organisms from settling on the colony. In these specialized zooids, both the tentacle crown and usually the gut are reduced.

🏡🦠 In short: the seaweed is mainly just living space for Electra pilosa, not a partner. For the seaweed itself, it is usually more of a burden than a benefit.

⛴️🪸 Moss animals can cause damage or maintenance costs to ships, harbor structures, and water management facilities through heavy growth.

💉🧫 On the other hand, they produce chemical compounds that are the subject of medical research, including the potential anti-cancer agent bryostatin 1.

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🦀 The crustaceans of Baltrum

Barnacles are marine crustaceans that, as adults, have a very different appearance from the classic crustacean. In the past, some were wrongly classified as mussels, even though they are not related to molluscs. Their larvae are free-swimming and visually resemble typical crustaceans. The species pictured originally comes from the waters around Australia and New Zealand, but has also appeared in the North Sea since the 1940s and has been multiplying rapidly ever since.

Sand hoppers (Talitrus saltator) are more clearly recognizable as crustaceans. They hop around on the sand, feeding on all sorts of organic matter. While I was taking the video, one nibbled on my hand, but I still managed to keep the camera relatively still.

The common pill bug (Armadillidium vulgare) is a woodlouse with a worldwide distribution. It's very common on Baltrum, and as a child, I enjoyed watching and making them roll up into a ball by touch. Not everyone knows that woodlice are crustaceans.

The shore crab (Carcinus maenas) is probably the most clearly identifiable crustacean. Its lateral locomotion evolved because it allows it to move more easily with its broad body. Firstly, it fits better through narrow spaces, and secondly, its body offers less resistance to water movement. In the video, you can see sand hoppers searching for organic materials on and around the crab.

The common hermit crab (Pagurus bernhardus) is another crustacean that requires a closer look. It lives in a snail shell. When the tide recedes, hermit crabs and shore crabs either try to follow the water or burrow into the wet sand to survive until high tide.

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My corn snake Dakota is simply the best 😁

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European garden spider (Araneus diadematus) 🕷️💕

Every year, an adult female garden spider builds her web in this preferred spot. The mating season begins at the beginning of August.

Sexually mature females secrete a substance whose smell attracts males.

However, the guys only notice the smell when they are up close. Therefore, the males themselves have to be good at finding and reaching promising places as well.

Garden spiders live for two years. Sexual maturity begins in the second year. The males die after mating, the females some time after laying their eggs (September-October).

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Dakota's hobbies: Snaking, climbing, digging, hiding.

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The Shining Serpent.
Many people are fascinated, but also fearful. Snakes have always played a special role for humans. The fear of snakes is innate, babies as young as six months react with stress to snake motifs. It is assumed that this has evolutionary reasons. It makes sense to spot a snake early, as some species are dangerous. Nevertheless, in ancient cultures primarily positive meanings have developed. The snake embodies knowledge and wisdom not only in ancient Greece, Rome or India, but also in Inca mythology and many more. The role as protector and as a connection between the worlds is also found again and again. It is a highly symbolic animal, godlike or with divine attributes. I can well imagine that this inborn fear has contributed significantly to the myth-making. You see this wondrous animal and you automatically feel something. "Where does this feeling come from?" In the past there was no concept of evolution and no scientific connection to instincts as it is possible to understand today. Of course, coupled with the obvious characteristics (kills rodents, legless, skins in one piece) this certainly captures the imagination. We deal with our environment, how we perceive and evaluate it. We recognize patterns and make assumptions. Inevitably we intervene and have to be aware of the consequences in order not to end up harming ourselves. Snakes are important, so are our instincts. But whoever kills a snake takes on a force stronger than oneself. Be it nature, be it God. Only a part of all snake species can be dangerous to humans, but almost any rodent can make you seriously ill. We are somewhere between monkeys playing with sticks and trees growing on our ruins. Snakes have been around for at least 167 million years. Humility.

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