A haunted swamp
This truly magical place is called 'Mali plac' and is a unique example of a raised bog, one of southern Europe's few remaining natural habitats of this type. It is the only surviving remnant of once vast, moss-dominated bogs of Ljubljana Marshes. Mali plac is home to an exceptional diversity of flora and fauna, including carnivorous plants such as the sundew, and is a sanctuary of the endangered European pond turtle. It is strictly protected nature reserve - best viewed from
Serendipity in the woods
Since we can see what we got on camera only *after* landing, this abandoned truck was one of those nice surprises. And we will never know if it is used for making honey - a beehive trailer - or crystal meth :-) Canon A810 on a Rokkaku kite.
Slow death of a lake ...
During the last 10 or so millenia a large lake, south of what is today the city of Ljubljana, slowly dried out, first enabling Neolithic and Bronze Age pile-dwellers to colonize it (the remains of pile dwellings are a UNESCO World Heritage Site today), then transforming into peat bogs and forest bogs. Finally the humans arrived again, who cleared the forests, built a large network of drainage canals drying the land, and starting to grow crops.
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Only a handful of wetlands,
High above the lake
See this lake? Well, it's an intermittent karstic one: Palcje lake (Palško jezero), Pivka Valley Intermittent Lakes nature reserve, Slovenia. In the summer the water escapes through limestone in the lake bottom and the lake dries out, the waters giving way to meadows and fields and red Salix shrubs. And then the autumn rains overwhelm the outlets (and the sinkholes turn into springs called estaveles) and all of this area is under tens of meters of water. We will take a pictur
Šilentabor archaeological site
Upper Pivka valley, Slovenia, has a rich and tumultuous history. There are abundant remains of Iron and Bronze Age hillforts, and Roman military camps, there are ruins of once mighty castles, ancient churches and villages still going strong. A 750 m hill called Tabor, above Zagorje, got its name from a type of foritified church - 'tabor' - that was both religious and defense structure. When the Ottoman armies and auxilliares rampaged around here, the villagers took refuge wi
Pag
View across the Bay of Pag, flying above camp Sveti duh, Pag island, Croatia. Canon A810 on the Royal 69 sled kite.
Invasion!
Below the small village of Zagradec near Grosuplje, Slovenia, lies a typical karst field called Radensko polje, with meandering streams dissapearing into sinkholes and caves. The streams are prone to overflow, so much of the area is swampy and thus an important habitat for rare and endagered flora and fauna. (Part of Radensko polje in 2006. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia user Tcie.) But this fragile ecosystem is under attack! There is a foreign invasion going on, literally suffo
Bikes to the beach!
This is probably one of our best photos so far, taken at the sandspit of river Sava, near the triple confluence of Sava, Ljubljanica and Kamniška Bistrica rivers. Canon A810 on a Rokkaku kite.
