New life on the lake

5700 Zell am See, Thursday, 

28th of May 2020 - 21:00

I was visiting her for the first time on the 13th of May this year. It was my first time seeing a swan on her nest.

I thought it is a bit strange to choose that place so close to a path where people can come so easily. But swans are big, heavy and quite aggressive birds, so they don't know fear too much or at all. So the best is to show respect in front of them, especially when they are many together as they use to do during the winter.

Beautiful, beautiful creatures who captured my fascination while living close to Danube Island in Vienna for two years. I see them every day for the last two years and I cannot change my fascination for their majestic kind of appearance on this post-card type landscape. Summer or winter, autumn or spring - they are staying here in a large number and bring visual and emotional joy for us. Such unfriendly and beautiful creatures, the swans ....

Since our first meeting as I stared her and for sure I disturbed her by being present so close to her I revisited her every few days. Living on the opposite side of the lake my walking or running way to her takes about five kilometres and a few times I came to visit her without any other reason. Just to see her again. 

Every time gorgeous and on the same spot. 

Swans usually mate for life, although "divorce" sometimes occurs, particularly following nesting failure, and if a mate dies, the remaining swan will take up with another. The number of eggs in each clutch ranges from three to eight.

Swans are the largest extant members of the waterfowl family Anatidae and are among the largest flying birds. In the video below it is a very angry male because the lady flew away from him. His ego, proud and masculinity were probably very hurt!

The largest species, including the mute swan, trumpeter swan, and whooper swan, can reach a length of over 1,5 m and weigh over 15 kg. Their wingspans can be over 3,10 m.

What we have here are the mute swans and it is very rare seeing one of them being alone by itself.

Quite unusual for birds, swans have "teeth" - jagged parts of their bill that are used for catching and eat fish.

Adults also have a patch of unfeathered skin between the eyes and bill. 

A group of swans is called a bevy or a wedge in flight.

Several species are migratory, either wholly or partly so. The muse swan is a partial migrant, being resident over areas of Western Europe but wholly migratory in Eastern Europe and Asia.

The picture above is from a very early February morning 2018.

Swans famously mate for life, and typically bond even before they reach sexual maturity. Divorce though rare, does occur; one study of mute swans showing a 3% rate for pairs that breed successfully and 9% for pairs that don't.

Swan's nests are on the ground near water and about a metre across. Unlike many other ducks and geese, the male helps with the nest construction, and also take turns incubating the eggs. The incubation takes at least days as I have read. I wanted to know how long time I will see "my swan" there on the eggs.

Yesterday late evening - I started at half-past eight as I never do - I walked around the lake and I visited her again. She was still there on the nest!

Along the shore, there were so many ducks, swans and other species sleeping or not. It was a peaceful evening and no humans on the way. Only me. But I am not human :-)

Average egg size for the mute swan is 113 x 74 mm, weighing 340 g, in a clutch size of 4 to 7, and an incubation period of 34-45 days. Swans are highly protective of their nests. They will viciously attack anything that they perceive as a threat to their chicks, including humans.

How old can become a swan? 16 up to 20 years old.

It was a rainy and very cloudy day today, the valley covered by dense fog. But in the afternoon I left home for a walk around the lake.

As the stronger rain started I just reached half of my mileage, I was on the opposite side of the lake and I saw the new life, the new bigger family ..... 

I stopped and filmed sweet moments of the swan family getting pitch wet, but who cares? I still had 6,5 km ahead to walk back home and when you are wet, you cannot become "weater" :-)

Very emotional, I loved it ....

After about half a km I reached the point where the nest was and I checked up ...... oh yes, the nest was left and empty, so "my swan" became mother :-)

And just a few steps away from the swan's family, another sweet new larger one, oh my Gosh!!! The funny ducks!!!

As I got closer to my home, still three km to walk, the peaks around the valley came into the view ..... 

With frozen hands, I needed some time to warm them under warm water and then I could change my clothes. Good night :-)

Tausend miles

1.000 miles = 1.600 km starting 1. January 2020

And since yesterday I started to walk and run barfoot. 3 Km yesterday, 5 km today. Tomorrow: regeneration day :-)

Grounding Day. Barefoot through life.

This May weather leads me crazy this year, for sure! The first May free of a working program after two years brings me such a tremendous different feeling of life and living and even death emotions.

You don't choose a life. You live it.

 I am drunk by the vivid colours around me. I cannot read, I cannot draw, I cannot learn, I just ..... heal.
The small delicate waves without any rest of foam cover my feet like love whispers. These are sensational moments of life. It feels like an end before a start. 

I ask myself how it comes that my life changed so dramatically for the last six months ..... 

And this one - 2 km - hurts!! :-)

When the Universe sings for me

Zell am See - to Bruck - 25. May 2020, 7 p.m.

60 k ride Zell-Kaprun-Stuhlfelden

Saturday, 23th of May 2020 - Zell am See

It was an absolutely spontaneously decision after before yesterday hike through the Seisenberger-Gorge in Weißbach.

This weekend was the Virtual Race of Ironman for 3 km run - 40 km bike - 10 km run. I did the runs yesterday and today was planed the bike. I thought about the bike road to Krimml as being absolutely flat and without any traffic. 

I am back away from what it means to be trained anyway and by changing the priorities of my life I now enjoy my adventures in a softly different way than before. To be at this point after the ligaments rupture in the left knee that happened in March on the ski slope it can be defined as a wonder of inner healing and the process is described here on the blog.

And by "before" I will always probably mean anno 2015.

The month of May is a bliss. I am in love with any kind of season and weather, but the month of May conquered my heart forever. Everything is blowing and re-birthing. 

I took the road from Schüttdorf to Kaprun through the Ebster Intersection reaching the centre of Kaprun, crossing the main street and entering the flat parcours to Piesendorf - Niedernsill. I didn't take any pictures until I reached Stuhlfelden, I just was enjoying the weather, the ride and the weather with the wonderful May colours!

This is before entering Stuhlfelden and I took the picture on the way back shortly before 5 p.m. as the first signs of the storm occurred over the entire region.

I was wearing absolutely summer clothes and I took, for the first time in the last five years I think, one of the most beautiful cycling pants that I bought back in 2013 before the Tulcea Triathlon as I felt so great and so strong and so happy and I wanted to have a special beautiful suit on me - what cost me a lot of time in transition 1 by the way, I left the T1 as the last one because of this suit! But beautiful memories and a nice 2nd place if I remember right.

The 30 km to Stuhlfelden lead the rider along meadows, over Salzach River and over the regional Pinzgauer Train parcourse.

Stuhlfelden is a municipality in Pinzgau County at about 800 m altitude and having around 1.600 inhabitants. Everything is up on the hill and it is for sure a charming place to live, as almost everywhere here.

This is a big old house with original wood so far I could suppose.  Entering Stuhlfelden by bike this is the first element catching the eye on your right side. No idea how old it is, I could not find any information about it. Stone, old and new wood, a regional-specific architecture and for sure modernised inside.

A sitting bench .... very low and small - 

so I could think the building is about 200 years old, as you find all over the country in the rural areas.

Although I was sure I will reach Mittersil today - another five to eight km - I decided to explore a bit more detailed the Stuhlfelden place and I took the road up on the hill to the right along with this house and in a few hundred meters I could drink fresh mountain water.

The road goes on uphill and here there is the protection wall.

These protection walls from concrete are all over the places here in the Alps, protecting the villages.

The road turns left here on the mountain and leads for about five km or more to a cabin - Alm -, which now is of course closed. The Alms are normally opening Mid of June when the summer season starts, so it is not about the virus or pandemic or so.

 A few meters after the curve another road splits suddenly and abruptly up to the right and I entered it. It is a forest road, so I let the bike behind and went above the waterfall.

I took the grassy narrow path to the left then and I watched back.

I decided to return to the road as I saw no good perspectives to go on at that late hour of the day, it was almost 4 p.m.

I took the bike and continued the ascending road for a few hundred meters more and then I let the bike behind (again) entering a descending path into the forest. Aunts Home, Forest Chapel - Stuhlfelden, Pinzgau, Austria

As all over the country doesn't matter which county there is a small forest chapel from anno 1833.

And a huge aunts macro cosmos which I watched for a few minutes and left it amazed. Millions of aunts working, carrying ....... big aunts. Organized as we could see in documentaries. Brrrrr - feeling!

The weather was still warm and sunny but black clouds were racing up over the valley so the best decision was the only one option: to start the ride back home.  

5724 Stuhlfelden appears for the first time in a document around year 963 under the name of "Stuolueldum". We are here in the Pinzgau County belonging to Salzburger Land. 

There is a specific Pinzgauer Dialect and when you speak to a local and tell him/her you understand/speak only elevate German (Hochdeutsch), they show a sort of disrespect. The Pinzgau people are extremely proud of themselves and they call themselves as being something special in the entire country of Austria. For me I could not find the reason for their "high noses", but in contrary actually. If I would be asked to characterised the locals I would say, they are closed, harshed, not especially friendly, greedy and proud without any special reason. They tolerate foreigners but don't like them and the range of reasons is wide. Foreigners mean money or cheap labour force. Last week I met a local here over 60 who said to me: "All here are lazy! They work a few months per year during the touristic seasons and the rest of the time they are doing anything. Lazy and dirty!"

OK, this is his 60 years of experience living here, I cannot say it.

The term "Stuhl" means chair and "Feld" means meadow - but I wouldn't want to translate the name. With about 1.600 inhabitants it's a small village.

The article could not be finished because after one hour of writing here the internet page was closed and all I wrote disappeared ..... and I do not do the work again, so sorry ..... 

I rode back home through unleashed nature which fascinates me and transposes me into a kind of ecstatic state of mind. Despite the black sky over me, I enjoyed the good luck of being pushed by the winds and I struggled a bit concentrating of biking with one hand and filming at the same time.
The big nervous rain and the 10 minutes of hail reached me four km away from home only.
Here some relevant short videos and pictures as an overview of the adventure ..... so sorry about the lost data and information I wrote before .... it was about castles and other things. 

Anyway, I was cycling 60 km today but I couldn't save the 40 km to be added for the Virtual Duathlon Race, so practically I did it and on paper I didn't do it, who cares? It was an adventure and I am happy to have done it!