God Betrayers and White-throated Dippers

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were kind of a blur, as I focused on completing the maquette, forging a nail for the Zimmermann nail tree and arranging my flights to Spain. I went with Heiner to visit his galvanizer and pick up a window grille he was having zinc-sprayed.

I got a chance to visit the town of Tubingen, whose university is one of the oldest in Central Europe. The town contains main of the original medieval buildings that are kept up and occupied. The highlight from my walk around town was watching White-throated Dippers wade into a shallow stream up to their bellies looking for insect larvae.

On Thursday after work I spent the afternoon birding a local forest preserve, which was teaming with birdlife. The view of the valley below was amazing.

I ended the day by frying up some "God betrayers" from Heiner's uncle's butcher shop. The dish is a Swabian speciality that consists of pork sausage wrapped in a dough, kind of like a ravioli but bigger. The name comes from the fact that they were usually eaten during Lent, and the pork was wrapped in the dough to hide it from the local priests.

New bird species after six days: 41