The first blue moor frog came out one week ago but due to the decreasing temperatures, amphibians, insects, spiders.....every sign of spring disappeared again. Heavy snow and a temperature of -11 degree Celsius.....not really what I’m longing for. ‘My’ snowdrops were covered by snow and when the snow melted, not much of them was left.
Fortunately some flowers did survive!

The weather forecast for next week is hopeless and although I have resolved not complaining about the weather, I really DISLIKE it!
I’m longing for warmth and to photograph a living creature......so maybe my next blog will take a bit longer.

With beautiful autumn weather I returned to the area where I had found the autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale). This plant looks similar to the spring crocus but blooms in autumn after the leaves have died. As the sun was shining slightly, some flowers were open. As these little plants are growing in wet and nutritious meadows I was dressed in a rain suit and equipped with an angle finder. Lying down in the grass and concentrating on the ‘best’ composition I heard some noise in the distance. A group of hikers were looking at me......I waved to them to show that I was alive and continued photographing these lovely flowers.

As I also found an exposed Ink Cap (Coprinus comatus) earlier, I walked into the forest to photograph this mushroom. It took me some time as I tried to catch the falling drops of the cap.....unfortunately I had to use a slow shutter time and it was a mission impossible to catch them falling. I make the rounds and when I crossed an other path I met some hikers. It seemed that this was the group hikers which had seen me before and they were very anxious to know what I had photographed. I showed them my autumn crocuses and had a little talk with them. 
Later on I realized that I need business cards to hand out as here in Germany (Teutoburger Wald) almost everybody starts a conversation and is interested in what I’m doing.

Today is a special day: an extra day! And on this leap day (which is the last one I will be online) I found a flower with a beautiful heart.  Although it's grey outside it feels like the sun is shining!

Canon 7D; tripod; remote release;  MP-E 65 mm, 0,3s at F3.5 and ISO100

At last winter started this week with a thin layer of snow. Comparing to last winter it is nothing but I shall not complain as I’m happy that snow and cold finally arrived.
While it was snowing I went out with my camera as I wanted to photograph Snowdrops, but the plants I photographed earlier were not photogenic enough. Fortunately I found some moss in the snow with the beautiful scientific name: Tortula muralis (it reminds of Pirates of the Caribbean) . It took me some time to find the right composition and in the meantime the snow was thick enough for some over exposure shots.

Canon 7D; tripod; remote release;  180 mm, 1/12s + 3stop over exposure at F3.5 and ISO100

Today the employees of the weather forecast FINALLY did their job correctly and the promised snow is falling right now.......of course I was out and enjoyed winter wonderland! I photographed the same crocuses as one week ago. The advantage of photographing with frost is that people are in a hurry and don’t speak or ask anything :-).

Canon 7D; tripod; remote release;  180 mm, 1/25s at F3.5 and ISO100

Two weeks ago, I discovered in the city a public garden full of crocuses; due to the warm weather the flowers were out but not flowering. I doubted whether I should photograph them as they were growing in front of a supermarket. I didn’t like the thought photographing between people who are doing their shopping’s.

But, yesterday I faced my doubts, said ‘hello’ to a lot of people and explained the asking children what I was doing. The real challenge were not the passing people but to avoid lying down in dogshit or touching it......the amount of dogshit between the lovely crocuses was disgusting!