Birds and fast cars

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."
George Best (1946-2005)

Welcome to part two of my Switzerland blog. In the first installment there were a lot of mountains and waterfalls, this time I am going to show you some of the other things that Switzerland has to offer... but before that, its time for a short visit to Liechtenstein.

Liechtenstein is one of the smallest countries in Europe, having a land area of only 160 square kilometres, bordered on the east by Austria and otherwise surrounded by Switzerland.

On the third morning of my trip we made a short detour (from Switzerland to Liechtenstein) in order to photograph a bridge which crosses the Rhine near to the village of Ruggell.

evidence! The bridge at Ruggell, from the Liechtenstein side.

Its always nice to visit a new country. The border between the two countries is defined as being the middle of the river, so I was at least 50 metres inside the country for at least 10 minutes... of course it counts!

I was not the only visitor to Liectenstein on that day, I noticed that a Common Stonechat had also come for a look - a nice looking bird that I have seen in Scotland before but never in Finland.

a common stonechat

From Ruggell we returned to Switzerland and made our way to Walensee, a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. The light there was not much use for landscape photography but it was a very pleasant place to spend some time and looked like it could be a good destination for some sunrise or sunset photography another time.

a black headed gull perches on one leg at Walensee

From Walensee we continued to the town of Rapperswil where you may find an old castle and a marina as well as a lake area which is popular with wildlife.

the castle and marina at Rapperswil

From the marina area you can follow a path which takes you under the main road and into the lake area where you can find many water birds tending to their families, including coots, great crested grebes, grey herons and mallards.

under the bridge - Rapperswil

Here again the coots were initially the most eye catching bird species. There were many coot families with young chicks and while the adults are dark and plain the youngsters are a riot of colour and rather ugly-beautiful, they don't look like they could belong to the same species.

mom... am I adopted?

give me sushi!

For those of you who need a break from too many bird pictures, here is a picture of a bike resting against a hedge.

There is a raised walkway which allows you to walk across the lake for many hundreds of metres and offers a good view of any birds that might be in the area.

a house sparrow perching

a grey heron in flight

a dark morph common buzzard looking for prey

As we were returning towards the car I spotted something a bit more unusual, a little grebe ("little grebe" is the name of the species... it wasn't just a normal grebe that didn't look very big). I have not seen this species before so it was a bonus to add an image of it to my collection... even though the photograph is no masterpeice.

a little grebe

Rapperswil was a very nice place to visit, and especially good for bird photography.

We made our way back towards the Juvet family home in Waldstatt, stopping on the way for a "coffee break" which turned out to be an ice cream break. As far as I am concerned it is always time for ice cream, no matter how recently you had ice cream, what time of day it might be or how cold the weather might be. On a hot summer afternoon such as this, even the most unenlightened person might start to see the wisdom of my thinking.

As we enjoyed the ice cream the storm clouds started to gather over the mountains and the threat of bad weather grew - there would be no glorious sunset photography... but maybe there was a chance for some more bird photography as I saw a white stork (another new species for me) searching for reptiles or rodents in the nearby field.

a white stork stalking prey in a field

a white stork in flight

a mighty set of wings! The wingspan of a white stork can be over 2 metres.

Although I have never photographed a white stork before that is not because of a lack of opportunity. Last year in Germany I saw two unrealistic looking plastic storks about 30m away in a field and wondered why anyone would put such things in the middle of their crops... perhaps they are acting like scarecrows I theorised. If I had spent those moments getting my camera out of my bag instead of coming up with plastic stork theories I might have been in a better position to capture the moment when the "unrealistic plastic storks" flew away. I had to wait over a year for a chance to put this right.

The next day we were up bright and early and heading for the truly amazing Autobau car museum in the town of Romanshorn. I have been to a few different car museums before but this one was just outstanding, the collection was absolutely remarkable and all the cars were in first class condition. Each car was displayed in appropriate surroundings and spaced out in such a way that you could really appreciate each vehicle individually.

So... what cars could you see there? Well... for a start there were the Ferraris... many Ferraris... including a beautiful yellow Ferrari F12 TDF (click to view the pictures in a larger size).

vents and fuel cap

wheel

at the back

The red "La Ferrari" is a rather funny looking vehicle to my eyes, but it seems that it must get the job done with a capability of accelerating from 0-300kmh in less than 15 seconds.

Ferrari "La Ferrari"

These new Ferraris were joined by some of their ancestors with a classic Ferrari 330 GTO from 1964 and a Ferrari F40 supercar from the late 1980s or early 1990s... and also a Ferrari 488 GTB 70 year anniversary edition, a 2017 model commemorating the 70th anniversary of the company. I slightly regret not recording all the models that were on show, but if I remember correctly there were at least 7 or 8 different pristine Ferraris in the "Supersport" hall which is the first part of the museum that you are directed to from the reception.

The collection was not only about Ferraris... it contained many of the other things you might have been hoping to get in your hand when playing Sports Car Top Trumps - a Lamborghini Diablo, a Detomaso Pantera, an E-Type Jaguar, a Porsche 918 Spyder and a Mercedes 300SL Gullwing... and some exotic additions such as the Saleen S7, Bugatti EB 110 and the Vector W8.

Porsche 918 Spyder

Saleen S7 Twin Turbo

Maybe its a small detail, but almost every car had a rather striking colour and that really helped them to make an impression... this yellow Honda S800 might not have looked so impressive in medium grey.

Honda S800.... with the curious raised bubble on the bonnet.

Shadows of the Jaguar - Jaguar Mark II 3.4 Litre

Another interesting vehicle was the Enzmann 506, in a slightly disgusting pale green colour. The Enzmann brothers made their vehicles in the late 1950s and 1960s by taking the frame of a Volkswagen and adding their own lightweight fibreglass body on top, leaving a vehicle which had a lot of power for its weight. The 506 designation came from their stand number at the 1957 Frankfurt motor show where their creation made its debut.

the Enzmann 506

an interesting rearview mirror - Enzmann 506

This museum has given me so much I feel I should mention... and I am still only in the first section of it...  so I should hurry up.... but first I need to at least include a picture of the very beautiful Mercedes 300SL gullwing.

Mercedes 300SL

The next section of the museum turned to the serious business of car racing, in all its different forms. There was a dragster (drive 400 metres as fast as possible), an Indy car (drive 500 miles as fast as possible) and some cars that had competed in races such as the Daytona 24 hour (drive about 2500 miles over 24 hours... as fast as possible).

The museum owes it's existence to racing... to the racing of one man in fact, Fredy Lienhard has been a successful Swiss racing driver over many decades and the museum was founded with his personal car collection, many of the racing cars in the museum bear the name of his Lista racing team.

Fredy Lienhard's Daytona 24 hour winning Dallara-Judd SP1 V10

Simona de Silvestro's Dallara powered to the Rookie of the Year honours at the 2010 Indianapolis 500

What about Formula 1 I hear you ask? Good question. There were almost enough Formula 1 cars to have a Formula 1 race... although they were all from different years so ensuring a fair race might be a challenge. Alain Prost's 1983 Renault was one of the earlier ones.

Alain Prost's 1983 Renault RE40

The distinctive red of the Ferrari F1 team always makes an instant impression.

Jean Alesi's 1994 Ferrari 412 T1

If the race between all the Autobau Formula 1 cars was a team event then I think that Sauber might end up as the dominant constructor, one of the halls at Autobau housed one of each Sauber F1 carfrom 1994 to 2005 inclusive. An amazing collection.

We eventually dragged ourselves away from Autobau and continued our tour, after a walk around the old town of St Gallen we visited the botanical gardens. Botanical gardens are often very interesting places to shoot, the rich colours and interesting shapes of any flowers that might be on display are one attraction and any insects or other wildlife that they attract is another.

I did not have a macro lens with me on this trip so my all purpose 24-105mm f4 lens was taken into action. One of the things that I often try in this kind of situation is to make images where a pattern or a colour or a texture can fill the entire frame.

channels

repetition

succulent

impressionism

Inevitably, the bees buzzing around the flowers in the external gardens became the most interesting subject and many frames were spent trying to capture their important activities.

Robert Juvet in action - one of the few occasions when you try to get closer to stinging insects

When I look back on this trip, I find that I am not all that excited about my pictures - the light was never quite right, sometimes that's just how it goes -  but I can say that this was anyway one of my favourite trips since I started writing the blog.

The great hospitality and friendship shown to me by my hosts, the Juvet family, was something that I will not forget and they also did a great job of showing me the attractions in their area.

Thanks once again to Robert, Krisztina and Isi for all their kindness!