Читать книгу Wanderlust: A Tiny Isle in the Northern Sea - Katja Just - Страница 8

The question whether it is not terribly boring on a Hallig, especially in winter, follows every Hallig inhabitant. It can only be put by someone who has no eyes for nature, who cannot hear the silence and see the vastness. This question is asked, for example, by someone who has never taken a walk on the dike in mid-February. Admittedly - this is Hooge for the advanced, but also beautiful.

It's a little more than 10 miles around Hooge. The Hallig can be circumnavigated on foot in a good three hours. When the wind slowly gets less, it's freezing cold and still a little foggy, it's worth packing up thickly and walking towards the water. One gets the impression as if one is completely alone on an island in the middle of the sea. There are no terps and no surrounding islets to be seen. In such a moment I always have to think of The Infinite Story of Michael Ende. "The void is spreading," they say. It's a bit scary, but also impressively beautiful to see the nothingness. The almost infinite nothing. And above all, to hear. An eagle owl? Here, without a forest? Is there really an eagle owl to be heard or is that the ancient Morla from the swamps of sadness? No, on the contrary! The call is reminiscent of a forest bird (or of the muttering of the old turtle), but this is a duck. To be precise, the black-and-white drake of the eider duck, a species of sea duck with particularly soft feathers, whose scientific name translates as "the softest of all with the black body". It is the call of the Erpels, which one can hear particularly well in the winter-time. It is also not only a drake to be heard and this call has nothing to do with sadness. It's a courtship call, and when men courtship, women aren't usually far. If the men try hard, the ladies will answer at some point. Between the soft wind, the whispering of duck love and the other bird voices, which are still very restrained at this time of year, this nothing can be heard again and again. The wonderful thing about it is that you can not only hear it but also feel it, and that is by no means creepy or frightening.

You can also walk well on the mudflat floor, which has been released by the water, along the rinsing seam, which forms again and again after the withdrawal of the water and looks like a wavy line full of little treasures and secrets. Who is particularly attentive, can find in the tangle of seaweed the "gold of the sea", as the amber is also called. I haven't been able to do that yet. Once on a mudflat hike to the Japsand, an offshore sandbank that can be reached after about an hour - I ran right in front - I thought to myself: What's a few meters ahead? So big, could it possibly...? At that moment a boy ran past me and shouted, "Hurray! I found an amber! I am the king of treasure hunters!" Then I knew that it was an amber, and so I left it with the active search. I have never seen such a large stone again and I am not even looking for the smaller ones, which occur much more frequently. There are some eagle eyes among the Hallig inhabitants, who discover these gemstones, which only develop their wonderful brilliance in various shades of yellow after they have been cut, even from a height of one meter eighty. This will remain an eternal phenomenon for me.

It becomes spectacular when the fog has dissipated and a supposedly huge "cloud" appears above the mud flats. The tidal flat seems to have no tangible end, the horizon is endless. These "clouds" dance like on a stage and it takes a while to understand who has taken the mudflat stage here. They are the Knutts, probably the best dancers in the world, at least in combination and in the air. The Knutts, also called Knuttstrandläufer, are about 25 centimetres long and belong to the most unusual long-distance fliers in the bird world. Their hibernation areas are in Africa, but there are also subspecies that spend the winter in Australia or North New Zealand. On their journey between the wintering and the resting and breeding areas in Canada, Greenland and Siberia, these small birds can cover stages of up to five thousand kilometres non-stop. The Wadden Sea is one of the most important resting areas of the Knutts. It is always a unique performance that these birds perform, and one wonders why it never comes to a "flying accident". Any of them announce a change of direction? From now on they are not to be seen any more, if they have changed the direction. Depending on whether they turn their backs or stomachs towards us, we alternately look at the dark or the light side of their bodies. When the sun shines directly on it, they do not stand out from the background for a moment and seem to have disappeared. Depending on the incidence of light, they sometimes even sparkle and it looks as if millions of diamonds are glittering in the sky. Often you can't even see them, but you can hear them flying up, because the wind sends their wing beat ahead. Only when they are directly above you can you see them and you are intoxicated by the soundscape and the speed.

The green dike, which can be reached via a staircase, is particularly suitable for frosty conditions. The grass still wetted by hoarfrost glitters in the morning sun, the air is clear and the bird calls are carried far under these conditions. As well as the "red red red" of the ring geese, which can be heard from the mud flats. They are very special guests who can only be observed twice a year on the Halligen. When they are not here, they are either in their winter territories in Great Britain, Southern France and the Netherlands or they are in moult and this happens in Siberia. In the extreme north there is the peninsula Taimyr, which is the northernmost continental mainland part of the earth. Until there, the ring-geese fly in the spring in order to brood, after they have eaten themselves thickly and round in the Wattenmeer. It takes quite a while for a brent goose to take over. Brent geese are vegetarians and only about a third of the food consumed can actually be digested. So it happens that the geese drop a small sausage every three to four minutes. These tracks are good to see on the dike. Cross and cross they lie, the legacies of these geese. You have to eat a lot if you want to digest every three minutes and still gain weight.

On the Hallig every season has its special charms. Autumn and winter can be very rough and grey, but also bright and friendly. Sometimes there's snow. This almost looks like a fairy tale when you look to the neighbour Hallig Langeneß. Snow-white roofs and sugared terps, surrounded by a grey-white stone edge. If ice floes are carried through the water, the kitsch picture is almost perfect. It's beautiful. And quiet.

Autumn can form a stark contrast, not a trace of kitsch. Even though on Hooge we only talk about three to five times Landunter on average, it is still a force of nature that belongs to the Hallig and is even necessary. Not only has the flora adapted to the salt content, regular sediment deposition is also important for the development of a hallig. When a storm comes up, everyone knows what to do. Then nobody should go for a walk on the dike anymore. When the water floods the dike, the Hallig runs very fast full, the water comes from all sides and you would be enclosed in no time by the water, just as it happens outside in the mudflats when the tide sets in. It is a misbelief of many holidaymakers that the water can only come from the front if you have the beach or the dike in your back. The Wadden Sea is crossed by many tidal creeks - these are natural watercourses - of varying depths. One runs fuller faster, the other slower. Standing in the middle of it gets more than just wet feet.

Wet feet, a sharpened look, an ear for silence - you have to experience a Hallig with all your senses. Especially during a dike walk in winter. Those who can't do it, can't stand it or can't see anything, may indeed be deep in the swamps of sadness.