Countryside of Berlin: urban green in a drone view (4K)

Many tourists from overseas use to visit European cities in a much too short time. For this reason they often miss an entire picture of for example the city Berlin, when inserting an only short interstop here. Especially winter tourists can experience the German capital as a sad a grey urban being with some architectural major sites and a remarkable party life only.

 

Climate and landscape types in Berlin

 

Berlin has a continental climate and shows a completely other face in summer. It’s a very green face. Not only is the center of the city then colorfully greened by numerous urban parks, which partly lay almost adjacent to each other, but also the outskirts, in major parts covered by forests and grasslands or fields, appear like green oases.

 

 

Countryside of Berlin as aerial videography, Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth, Berlin June 2019. Please give my video on youtube a like, in case you like it.

 

 

Lübarser Felder and surrounding

 

Lübarser Felder is an area of agriculture, being under the management of inhabitants of the adjacent village Lübars, which represents the only Berlin village that still practices agriculture. The village has a long history and still has architectural monuments, dating back to the 19th century. Lübarser Felder lay adjacent to a nature refuge area more in the north, consisting of different kinds of wetlands, such as bog meadows or lowland fens. Lake Köppcensee as part of that nature refuge area is visible from a bigger distance in one scene of my video.

 

Püttberge and surrounding

 

The sanddune-mounts Püttberge are located in the east of Berlin and belong to the nature refuge area Wilhelmshagen-Woltersdorfer Dünenzug. The area consists of sandy mounts, some of them reaching a height of up to 68 meters. They are part of the glacial valley of Berlin, which dates back to the Weichselian glaciation, which happend between 115,000 and 11,700 years ago and covered almost the whole Northern Europe. The dune elevations of Püttberge were formed due to windblown sand inside the glacial valley. My footage shows the Wilhelmshagen-Woltersdorfer Dünenzug in a greater distance seen from the edge of the whole area. Ecologically the Püttberge are characterized by numerous plants and animals, being typical for sanddune environments.

 

Lieper Bucht at river Havel

 

Lieper Bucht is a bathing beach area at river Havel, belonging to the Berlin city district Nikolassee in the South-West of Berlin. The adjacent forest area is the huge urban forest Grunewald. The riverside of Havel in Berlin is geologically charactrized as sandy with a tendency to the formation of dunes, being like Püttberge a relict of the Weichselian glaciation. Flora and fauna are correspondingly composed. Pine trees for example are typical representatives. The nearby Havel islands Lindwerder and Schwanenwerder are visibe in my footage.

 

Berlin, June 2019

Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

Berlin Forest Grunewald and River Havel-Waterside

River Havel

 

The river Havel has its source in the Mecklenburg Lake Plateau and after 94 km flows in the area of the border between the federal states Brandenburg and Sachsen-Anhalt into the big river Elbe.

Havel runs besides the already mentioned states Brandenburg and Sachsen-Anhalt also through Berlin, the capital city of Germany. On its way, the river passes several bigger and smaller lakes, which serve as water reservoirs, even in hot summers, in which many german rivers and lakes from low water levels.

In its most parts, Havel is navigable, and weirs and locks regulate water levels and water supply.

Historically, Havel since at least 928 of our Western calculation played importent roles as natural border and water route. Through the middle ages up to times of the GDR wetlands as important ecosystems were stepwise drained. In more recent times the protection of unique nature refuges is proceeding. In 2004 for example, the Naturfreunde Deutschlands and the German Fishing Federation elected the Havel area as River Landscape of the year.

In 2005 the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the Nature Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU began the land restoration to create refuges for rare bird species , beaver, river lamprey, otters and other animals and plants.

The footage of my video was captured close to the bathing beach area „Lieper Bucht“. Visible are the Havel islands Lindwerder and Schwanenwerder as well as edges of the forest area „Düppeler Forst“.

River Havel and Forest Grunewald in Berlin, quadcopter footage. Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth, December 2018. Please like my video also on youtube, in case you like it.

 

Forest Grunewald

 

Adjacent to the Lieper-Bucht area, the huge urban forest Grunewald extends over 3000 hectare between the Berlin districts Charlottenburg and Zehlendorf.

It was elected as Forest Area of the Year by the Union of German Foresters in 2015. The Grunewald ecologically has a specific mosaic of ecosystems: heathlands, neglected grasslands, dunes, dandpits and marshlands. They all bear a remarkable biodiversity of rare animal and plant species.

Geomorphologically the Grunewald area was formed by galcio-fluvial processess during the Weichselian glaciation , which endet about 11600 years ago. Glacio-fluvial sands cobver the area in layers up to 20 meters and more.

The footage of my video also shows the so called Grunewald Tower. The memorial for the German Emperor  William I was planned in 1897 and finally built up by the architect Franz Schechten. The tower was finally inaugurated in 1899 and renovated between 2007 and 2011.

The footage was captured with a DJI Mavic pro quadcopter in mid December 2018.

 

 

Berlin, December 2018. Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth

Lake Teufelssee in Berlin as part of a glacial meltwater lead

Lake Teufelssee in the Berlin urban forest Grunewald is known since ancient times, but is even much older. This is unlike the adjacent hilly landscape, which is named Teufelsberg („Devil’s Mountain““, referring to the nearby lake). It represents an area of mounds of rubble, built up with debris of the destroyed Berlin after the Second World War. Teufelssee („Devil’s Lake“) however is part of a glacial chains of lakes, a result of a supraglacial stream from the period of the Weichselian glaciation.

Air-view footage of lake Teufelssee in Berlin. Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth, please like my video also on youtube,in case you like it.

 

Geomorphology of Berlin, lake Teufelssee and glaciofluvial sands

 

Berlin itself represents geomorphologically a push morain from the Weichselian glacier times (until 11.600 years ago). This until today explains the uniform and scarce vegetation in and around Berlin, which is due to specifically sandy ground conditions. Sand layers with a thickness of at least 20 m date back to glaciofluvial sands, being a result of the advance of a glacial tongue.

 

Vegetation and climatic zone

 

The stock of trees in the Grunewald area is dominated by oaks and pines, being well adapted to this ground composition and the Berlin geomorphology. The climate of the Berlin area is characterized as part of the temperate climate zone in the transition between maritime and continental climate. Aspects of the continental climate are predominant, which is why snowy winters as typical for the Southern parts of Germany are rare.

Instead winters are often very cold and with low precipitation unlike the hot summers, where most rainfall occurs. The winter 2018 to 2019 is following an unusually warm summer with long periods of heat and without rainfall. As a result, water bodies Germany-wide carried less water than usually. But in which intensity lake Teufelssee was or is still concerned is unknown to me. Differences to former years are not obviously visible.

 

Berlin recreation areas and the ancient origin of the term „devil“

 

Teufelssee and Teufelsberg represent local recreation areas and offer enthusiasts and families with children a popular playground in summer, and in case the lake is frozen, also in winter.

The appearance of the German word for „devil“ in Teufelssee and Teufelsberg is assumed to refer to an ancient place of worship in this area.

 

Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth, Berlin December 2018

What happens with our trees in Winter? A forest area of the naturerefuge Teufelsberg Berlin in air-view

The Berlin forest Grunewald in winter, shown from the area of the urban nature refuge Teufelsberg. The colors, brownish and grey with a little bit of green, dominate the winter landscape. This has biological reasons: Trees of a forest drop their leaves during the autumn-period. This happens in order to reduce water loss due to evaporation. Before they fall, leaves change their colors, sometimes into powerful red or yellow forms.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq9z41zFlvP/

Why do trees drop their leaves?

 

Chemically, the plant modifies chlorophyll into colorless components. Proteins (result of photosynthesis) out of these chlorophylls are resorbed by the plant (tree) in order to save nutrients for the cold season. Carotinoids then retain inside the leaves and appear in red or yellow shades. In winter, most trees are completely leafless and remind to skeletons, waiting for the next warm period.

Leafless trees in winter at nature refuge area Teufelsberg in Berlin, copyrights Stefan F. Wirth. Please like my videos also on youtube, in case you like them.

 

The Teufelsberg area in Berlin, a nature and  sports refuge

 

The Teufelsberg represents the second biggest mountain inside Berlin/Germany. It consists of rubble from the Second World War and extends about 80 m out of the plain around. It is named after a lake, which is located very nearby: the Teufelssee. The Teufelsberg is part of the „Grunewald“, an urban forest in the west of Berlin. Since 1950 the area was filled up with rubble from the city of Berlin, which was almost completely bombed down during the second World War.

Until 1972 about a third of all rubble from bombed buildings in Berlin were transported to the top of this mountain. After 1970 finally, the Teufelsberg was formed into a nature and free time area. Skiing and mountainbiking for example were enabled.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrMY_BdFlgF/

Kites, US-listening-station and drone footage

 

Today, also during the summer, people use the winds on the top of the mountain to fly kites. Since the late 1950s during the Cold War a listening station was built close to the Teufelsberg, which still exists as a ruin. The footage was captured with a drone (Dji Mavic Pro).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrE-c04lAnl/

 

Copyrights Stefan F. Wirth, Berlin December 2018.