Salten Langsø - undisturbed landscape

Salten Langsø holds a safe distance to disturbers.

Salten Langsø is a lake in Mid Jutland, about 12 m deep and 6 km long and very narrow, it lies in a tunnel valley in the lake district of Mid Jutland west of the lake Mossø. Salten Langsø has winding shores, and it mirrors the shape of the melted deadice-lump from Ice Age, which created the lake. The lake bassin has steep sides and is divided into four parts. In the western part is an island and the lake is here divided into two inlets.

 




the map is too dark, but you can of course see it better on Google Earth.

Salten Langsø with the valleys, the Salten river valley and the lake itself, is a side branch of the Gudenå river, and it is among the most undisturbed nature areas in Denmark.

Salten Langsø is like Mossø a part of Natura 2000-area in the Mid Jutland lake district , and it has some of Denmark's most beautiful and varied nature. The lakes and the valleys  are some of the most imprssive and illustrative Ice Age landscapes. ( the Gudenå river crosses north- south )

Salten Langsø is in several places only a few hundred meter broad. On the northside of the lake are high, forested hillsides (Høvil and Højkol skov) and Ildal skov. The southside, Addit Næs and Salten Næs in a relative flat area with forest, heath, farmland and several small lakes. The terrain rises again to the southwest , Addit skov, which is difficult to access. The highest point is Møgelbjerg (137 m).

Blueberry bushes

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The forests are privately owned, but driven with great emphasis on nature - and therefore the planting is very varied, and several areas have the characteristics of a natural forest. 

 

Along the path were hundreds and hundreds of digger wasps nest in the earth. I saw no wasps

, but it was interesting to see those little nests, looking like little volcanos ! I 'll recommend you to search for the digger wasps on the net for there are so many species!
 


The area around the lake is ,considering Danish conditions, sparsely populated. The lake is a part of Salten Å-river's water system, which is a side branch of the Gudenå- river. The lake is a natural eutrof lake with an average depth of 4,5 m, and a max depth of 12 m. Half of the lake area is under 4 m deep. The shore vegetation is mainly a narrow fringe of alder (Aldus glutinosa) (Danish: rød-el.) In a few places grow reed. 

In the DOF-list were in january 2012 registered well 17500 observations of 188 bird species, only few waders, but all other possible forest birds.The area north and south of Salten Langsø is mostly covered in forest, but it contains also a combination of lakes and forests which makes it one of Denmark's best terrains for birds of prey. Both the whitetailed eagle and the osprey are often seen. The white-tailed eagle has been breeding since 2008.

It is not a great fungus year this year, but at least there was one Karl Johan and a one of the little pretty red ones.



 








photo Salten Langsø September 2015: grethe bachmann

A Foggy Day in the Countryside...............

It's easy to see from the landscape ahead of the country road that the it's foggy today . The sun will hide until tomorrow afternoon. A foggy day has its own charm, the shades and colours are soft and  pretty, and there is something magic in the landscape -  as if the fairies might suddenly peep out...









A lake swept in fog is also a magic landscape - it is hiding something from the past, a forgotten world. Looking across the silent lake it is like wating for the barge from avalon coming out from the mist. The mystic in the air expands ones imagination - while a sunny day holds no mysteries.

The cattle is grazing in a frosty field, it seems they don't mind. Much cattle of today are used to stay out in the winter season. They have got enough wool to keep them warm. I'm not sure they would like to lie down in the grass however!

“One day many years ago a man walked along and stood in the sound of the ocean on a cold sunless shore and said, "We need a voice to call across the water, to warn ships; I'll make one. I'll make a voice like all of time and all of the fog that ever was; I'll make a voice that is like an empty bed beside you all night long, and like an empty house when you open the door, and like trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. I'll make a sound that's so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their souls, and hearths will seem warmer, and being inside will seem better to all who hear it in the distant towns. I'll make me a sound and an apparatus and they'll call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life."
" The Fog Horn blew.”


Ray Bradbury, The Fog Horn 

 










photo February 2015 Mid Jutland : grethe bachmann

Nørre Snede Village and Rørbæk Sø, Mid Jutland.

The sky was black and the rain was heavy. This really did not look good! We were on our way to pass the newly inaugurated highway bridge in Gudenå River valley at Funder, a bridge which had been discussed politically and among everyone years before they started the building.

Before we reached the bridge we passed a fauna bridge. There are various types, some lead above the road, others under the road, some are dry or wet passages. The highways are dangerous to animals, there are investigations of how the fauna passages work in Denmark and abroad. Some animal species avoid completely the open areas of roads and railways, other species try to cross the roads with risch of being hit. Putting up fences can prevent the large animals in getting on the road, but this also increase the barrier. It's not easy. Many areas, which earlier functioned as a habitat and a spreading corridor for wild animals, are reduced or have disappeared.

It's a long bridge, the longest bridge across land in Denmark, about 740 meters. ( the photo of the bridge seen from a hill is from 2010) There was not much to see this of the landscape below because of the rain - so we went on to Nørre Snede where we wanted to see how things were going with the "Heart Path" (Hjertestien). It's a path which runs around the village in Nørre Snede.

here was once an Iron Age village.

relief dog, Nørre Snede church.

I wanted first to see the church which is being renovated. There are some funny reliefs on the wall, especially the dog is fine. The heart path has a view point on a hill in a pasture area from where you can overlook a fine landscape. Downside the hill was in ancient times a village, a so-called classical Iron Age village, which via the excavations has told much about people's lives in Iron Age.

Upon the hill is a low viewing-place with planches and drawings of animals, birds, insects, plants which are seen here, and a description of the Iron Age village etc. It is also meant for school children when they are out on tour. (if you enlarge you can see the raindrops on the planche). The "heart path" leads to many other places on the tour through the village of Nørre Snede, which actually is a big village, but the signs with the heart had not been placed yet along the road. They will probably be there before next season.

It was as if the sky was a little lighter somewhere up there, the sun made a fresh attempt to shine through the clouds - but not yet. Maybe later.  It's necessary to be an optimist when it's about the weather in autumn, and now we are soon close to winter! Now coffee break at Rørbæk Sø (lake). The water was like a mirror. Literally. It was not a cliché.  Not a movement in the water, except if a bird came by. And the sun began shining through and the light became golden like it is in a summer's late afternoon. It was worth gettting out that day just to see this.

         

photos: 14 October 2012: grethe bachmann
drawings on planches: stig bachmann nielsen. naturplan.dk.

A small town, a new lake and a peregrine falcon

Limfjordens Hus.

Limfjordens Hus, Scandinavian style

motor boat, view from window

Lighthouse

Limfjordens Hus

I had a birthday, which everyone of us has each year of course - it was in September and we decided to go to the northernest place of the insula Salling, where I had heard about a new restaurant on the outmost tip of land at the small town Glyngøre - a town where my father spent many hours of his childhood, sailing and fishing. His home was south of Glyngøre at Nymølle, where his father was the owner of  Nymølle Tilework.

This new restaurant was built about a year ago, in 2011, a blackpainted wood building, the architecture like the stem of a ship, there is a gourmét kitchen, and a boutique where you can buy all kinds of delicacies (especially in connection to fish) and wine. The menu contains a lot of good dishes, especially fish, mussels and oysters. I like fish, but not mussels and oysters. The gourméts can have them in peace for me. The restaurant is called Limfjordens Hus. It was a very lovely place. We had a table by the panorama window with a view to the waters of Limfjorden where sailboats, fishing boats and little old motorboats came passing by. The sun was shining, it was a perfect day and the food was delicious.

Glyngøre

Glyngøre.
The little cosy town Glyngøre has a unique placement upon an spit of land in the Limfjorden, a land tongue which creates several beaches,  surrounded by high hills, intersected by deep slopes, and giving fine possibilities for fantastic tours, both on land and water. There are some well-developed path systems, and from Glyngøre till the neighbouring town Durup is established a planete road with "the Sun" placed at the tourist bureau in Glyngøre and the outermost planete in Durup. Another biking and hiking path is the old railway, which runs from the harbour of Glyngøre through fields, forests and villages all the way to the town Skive in the southern part of Salling.

Glyngøre harbour

Glyngøre has its roots in water, both ferry and fishing have supported the people of the district since from time immemorial  and created revenues ever since Glyngøre was mentioned for the first time in 1445. The greatest development came with the railway in the 1870s. The Salling railway opened up for a revival of business and increase of population which caused that a church was consecrated in the middle of the town in 1919. Both the industry and the placement of the town at the fjord and the forest have caused that it has developed from two windswept fishing huts into a modern settlement.

The Limfjord-Oyster.
The most wellknown business in Glyngøre is the oyster and mussel  industry. Oysters were in Stone Age an important food - this is obvious when you see the mountains of shells in the several kitchen middens from Stone Age. Oysters became later (Ostrea edulis) a luxurious food, reserved the finest circles, and king Frederik II elevated in 1587 the catch of oysters to a monopoly under the royal house - a socalled kronregalie (regalia) which ordered all oysters, which were presence in Denmark, the property of the Crown. The oyster fishing was for many years a good income for the king, and up to our days it was the Danish monarchy and later the Danish state who leased the right to fish oysters in Denmark. Limfjorden is the only place with large presence today of the oyster, which earlier was common in all Danish waters, and the Ostrea edulis, the flat European oyster, is not being fished in other places than in Denmark. Denmark's export of Limfjord-oyster is ab. 15 million piece a year. The Limfjord-oyster has now got the MSC-mark.

The Blue Mussel.
But I cannot mention the oyster-business without saying something about the blue mussel ( Mytilus edulis) , for this is also one of Glyngøre's wellknown and important exports. 100 % of the Danish mussel-export has the renowned and international MSC-mark (Marine Stewardship Council). The blue mussels in the Limfjorden are cultivated between May and September, and about a couple of thousand tons are harvested each year, the mussels are produced sustainably without or with only little impact of the environment and the other mussel-populations. The whole Danish mussel-export is about 42.500 tons each year.

The Salling Girl

Now! I really had to give you a recipe after all this talk, but I cannot deliver it without copying someone's recipe, and this is not allowed I guess!

Sallingsund Bridge in the background

 The Salling Girl.
An artist (Erik Dahl Nygaard) has created the sculptures of 8 Salling-girls, a 2 meter tall bronze figure, they all wear stilettos. When I saw the sculpture of this girl outside the restaurant I wondered why she stood like that, looking like she had a scoliosis, but  well it must be the artist's idea of a young girl, but then it was because she had to balance on stillettos. The other 7 Salling girls are placed in various towns in the Salling district.  




















 Grynderup Sø.

Public Planche from naturplan.dk

In the afternoon  we went to a new lake which was re-established recently near Glyngøre. Grynderup sø (lake) is a nature restoration project. The purpose is to reduce the outlet of nitrogen into the Limfjorden and to create a better living for birds, animals and plants -  and to give people new possibilities of experiencing nature. The project has been carried through via voluntary agreements with the landowners. The main part of the area is still privately owned, while the Miljøministeriet (environment) has taken over ab. 80 hectare of the northernest part of the area, where the public probably will come. Bike- and hiking paths have been established, areas with tables and benches, parking places and primitive overnight places. Lookout towers give possibility to see the bird life, and in the northern end of the lake is a drawing- ferry in the narrowest place of the oblong lake.

                                                                                                   

 

red admiral

toad, a kid!

elderberry

peregrine falcon, photo: stig bachmann nielsen.




The Peregrine Falcon.
There were still some flowers by the path along the lake, like toadflax and yarrow and some yellow ones, there were dragonflies, too fast for shooting, and there was a tiny, tiny toad, who was looking at us in a very suspicious way.  The elderberry had fruits, ready to pluck for elderberry juice for winter, but there was not enough for both me and the birds, so I let them be. And then - there it came, the highlight of the day - a streak in the air like a flash of light - the peregrine falcon - it came so fast that I saw nothing but a glimpse. But my son took a shot of the noble bird in its speed. And this falcon is really extremely fast. The peregrine falcon is the fastest animal on earth when it is diving.

The peregrine falcon's maximum speed:
Speed is the falcon's forte. If birds of prey were airplanes, then the eagles, the buzzards, the kites would be the gliders, and the falcons would be the jets. Estimates of the maximum speed of a falcon dive are as fast as 273 miles an hour (440 km/h) based on analysis of motion-picture footage of a falcon in full vertical dive taken by the Naval Research Laboratory in England in WWII. Most biologists, however, estimate the falcon's maximum velocity at 150 to 200 miles an hour ( 240 to 320 km/h), which is still faster than any other animal on earth.
(from my article "Falconry in the Middle Ages" from August 2010, on the Thyra-blog) 




photo September 2012: grethe bachmann nielsen; stig bachmann nielsen, naturplan.dk