The Gardens of Nymphenburg Palace - A Habitat for Endangered Species

Diversity - The European Union protects nature and wildlife with the so called FFH Directive. FFH is an abbreviation for Flora-Fauna-Habitat and is basically a large network of protected areas for plants (flora) and wildlife (fauna). The aim is to protect a large variety of species and habitats throughout the member states of the EU. Each member state has to declare a certain number of FFH areas, not following the terms would result in legal action of the EU against that member state. Bavaria's present government still prefers new autobahn projects over nature protection and landscape conservation, so it might have been very positive in their eyes to have an endangered species living in a park that's not suited for new roads anyway.

Osmoderma eremita - A remark about the sound: you won't hear the animal that causes all these protection efforts... this is not a bug of the sound editing software - it's a real bug! The Hermit Beetle (or Osmoderma eremita) finds enough places to stay and survive in the park's forests. Old trees and dead wood, especially oaks are preferred. Something we tend to "clean up" throughout Europe.

Nymphenburg Gardens - One would assume that uninhabited areas far off "civilisation" are chosen for this program but to my surprise and while searching for an interesting subject I found an official list that mentioned a huge and well known park almost in the center of Munich. It's the park of an old royal palace, the birthplace of Bavaria's famous "mad king" Ludwig II. Very close to the "official" GPS coordinates which that FFH list offered of this 177 ha (437 acres) area I found this lovely spot at an artificial lake. The lake's water resource is the nearby river Würm, subject of one of my former contributions. Despite of the shallow water the red box contains a life belt. The ladder shouldn't be used to climb the trees but to rescue people who break through the ice during the winter season: the park's lakes and channels are particularly popular for an afternoon spent with ice skating.

Monopteros - The lovely temple is a witness for Bavaria's historical love for the Greek culture. You can find more information about it and some more nice views of it following the links below.

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Europe / Germany

Lat: 48° 9' 22.53" N
Long: 11° 29' 26.35" E

Elevation: 517 m (1696 ft)

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

• camera:
  Zeiss-Ikon SW 35mm format rangefinder camera
  lens:
  Voigtländer 12 mm Heliar 1/8 sec., f16.5
  film:
  Fuji Reala 100 ISO

• panohead:
  Novoflex with Manfrotto rotator

• tripod:
  Novoflex BasicBall with Minipod Extension Set
  total height of 33 cm (13") which resulted in about 4 cm (1.5") above lake level

• 16-bit A/D conversion aka scans:
  Nikon LS-4000 ED w/ SA-30 film roll adapter, SilverFast Ai 6.6

• stitching software:
  hugin 0.8.0 rc2 on Mac OS X

• additional software:
  Photoshop CS, CubicConverter, VRPrep AppleScript by Landis

• field recording:
  Edirol R-09HR, sound edited with Audacity