A Day's Trip in Mid Jutland on Some Old Favourite Places!

The sight of a buzzard tells us that it's a day for the hovering birds of prey - a fine day.

On our way to a heath in Mid Jutland we came  through a part of the town Viborg I hadn't seen before - a large area, Egedal, with lots of one-storey wooden houses, all in the same dark-red colour, like the popular Swedish wooden houses. Viborg was once a "military town"  - it must be the old barracks, which have been rebuilt into lovely houses. They all looked quite new.

Scarce copper

Tansy ragwort

 We first came to a flowering field with tansy ragwort, bluebells, daisies, yarrow and many other flowers. We were looking for the Dark Green Fritillary, which was seen on this location, and we found two mating Dark Greens and a single one, which might be a Dark Green Fritillary, but it is difficult to recognize from two other Fritillaries if it doesn't show the underside! There were numbers of the fine little Scarce Copper with the golden red colours. The scent of herbs was strong in the warm air.

Dark Green Fritillary mating

maybe Dark Green Fritillary

On the other side of the road was a corn field with cornflowers (or Blue Bonnets, it has got many names). The most wonderful and amazing blue colour this lovely flower. It was my mother's favourite flower, and  she knew nothing better than having a bouquet of cornflowers when I had been out. The blue cornflower is the epitome of a Danish summer, and the honey bees are humming around the flowers. This cornfield must be cultivated by an ecological farmer. I like him. There are gradually more and more ecological farmers, who don't spray the fields. This is good. Maybe it was his fallow field we have just visited.

The next stop was Dollerupbakker , the heather hills with a view to the deep lake, Hald. A bench on top of the hill, called Niels Bugge's Bænk is always our resting place for la little lunch and coffee. He was a nobleman from the Middle Ages who once built a castle by Hald lake. He opposed the king and was the leader of the Jutland nobility. Opposite the castle site is a good restaurant, Niels Bugge's Kro. He has never seem this bench, but his name is always connected to the place.  The earth around the bench is bare. Last year was the heather attacked by some disease which made the leaves red. But it will soon come again. And the cow berries too.




During the latest years have Skov og Naturstyrelsen and  Viborg Kommune made a large renovation and re-establishment of the original nature, and now it is almost like the cultural landscape from the Middle Ages. Several trees, which did not belong to the moor, were removed. Large parts were cleansed for selfgrown trees, and this has created the light-open conditions which is necessary to re-create the heaths and pastures. In other places of the hills are goats and sheep grazing, keeping down the budding trees.



The hills lie now, round and pretty, with few remaining trees. We can see a flock of goats on top of the hills. They are excellent climbers. There is no eagle here to push them down,  I've heard that in Spain and other places with mountains and steep paths, the eagle pushes the goat or the sheep down from the path. That's an easy way to get a meal. I don't think the local buzzard is big enough to push a goat down from the top.



                                                                             Vrads Sande is a heath area marked by inland-dunes created by the sand drift in the 1500s -1800s. A large area is now listed, a hiking path goes through it. We met the owner of  some Highlanders. And Highlanders have my full attention. Always. I cannot resist those sweet creatures with their forehead-curls. He told us that he has 50 Highlanders, spread around in the heath. He comes with some food to them on a regular basis. "It is necessary that I'm able to call them up to me", he said. Or else the cattle take care of the themselves all year.  In winter he gathers them all in fields near his farm.





In the nearest town, Vrads is a special grocery store with a small café, a library, a local newspaper and a gallery.  It's a popular place with special  groceries. There have been a voting, and people want to keep this shop.

Maiden pink

Another fallow field on our way with daisies, eternelles,  lupine, yarrow, Maiden pink and much more. the sun was warming and it was a place I felt I couldn't leave. If I had a house close to a field with lots of flowers. That would be lovely. But I haven't downside my flat are green lawns and cherry trees and beech hedges. Very nice and neat. It would not be practical for the gardener to "nurse" a fallow field there!






Those daisies white and golden as long as I could see.

Common daisy

  In between some maiden pink. and there were some pink yarrows too. They easily get that pink shade from a special soil.  Again numbers of scarce sopper butterfly, red golden in the sunlight. and the little common blue butterfly with its delicate light blue shade fluttering restlessly   around from flower to flower.  

Scarce copper

yarrow in pink

Eternelle

Lupine

Red-backed Shrike

Whinchat

But we had to go home, and the last place was another favorite I have shown more than once in some posts here on the blog. At Brudesø. (Bride's Lake). Here is almost always a red-backed shrike, but if I ever get an acceptable photo of any bird, then it is an accident. I simply haven't got the patience to stand still behind a bush for a long time. There was also a little whinchat, and the photo is terribly bad - and I only know it is a whinchat because my son says so! No, I prefer flowers. They stand still! I'll never go out in a hurricane!

Forester

Dead viper

There was a green Forester on a pink flower. It looks like a fine little jewelry, from Cartier perhaps? And then in the middle of the path was a dead viper, a proof that there are vipers in the heather, where we had just walked for an hour or so. There are always vipers in the heather, and we never see them. They must be masters in getting away when they hear us. I don't think about them while I'm there, but the look of this dead one was a reminder.

Common Blue

Well, the end of a day's trip. A lovely day with the warm sun shining down on me!
And then home for a good meal and a crime story on TV!
 



photo 4. August 2011:grethe bachmann

click to enlarge photos.