Shock to the system 🥶 Unusually strong cold is pouring south out of the Arctic into Europe right now. This is an ideal setup for deep fresh snow accumulations in the Alps and flooding in Central Europe. This is about as cold as it gets this early in September.

Tributary dams across eastern Czech Republic have started releasing large volumes of water to bring reservoir levels down to create storage for what could become one of the worst flooding events in Central Europe’s modern history.

Roving the extensive dry #limestone #grasslands on mt. #Vremščica (1028 m) just "behind" home, looking for migrant #Dotterels. No luck. Of around 10 repetitive yearly visits in September, only 2 were the lucky ones with Dotterels seen. #wildslovenia #birding #migration #karst

You want weird? R-L Pierpaolo Pasolini, Maria Callas (as Medea) & 🇮🇹 olympic bronze medal triple-jumper Giuseppe Gentile (as Jason) on the set of his film Medea (1969) filmed in the lagoon of Grado & Marano. His mum was a friulana schoolteacher & he spoke the language fluently.

Exceptional snowfalls are impacting the Austrian Alps, with 50 cm already recorded in Bad Gastein at 1950m altitude. Up to 2 meters of snow is expected by Sunday!

Large & small Brown Bear's poo from the #Dinaric forests on #Snežnik's plateau. Also the time of year when bears like to turn large stones in search for ant's nests, earthworms and other invertebrates (source of proteins for the winter). #brownbear #wildslovenia

People asking how things are re. the floods. Everything is OK after days of heavy rain. The winds for #StormBoris were from the NW & the Alps gave a rain shadow for the N. Adriatic area. The bulk of the problems are in the lower & mid-Danubian catchment. bbc.com/news/live/cdrj…

How it started..................How it's going

Well I must say, a million beavers don't seem to be cutting it. #rewilding theguardian.com/world/2024/sep…

Flooding disaster unfolding right now in Central Europe. Why is it so bad? This thread takes a quick look at some of the key ingredients of this record-breaking storm.

You can clearly see the rain shadow created by the Alps & Dinaric Alps protecting the Adriatic coast & N. Italy.

Also one of the best places in ,🇸🇮 to see Wallcreeper *during the winter months* (December - March) esp. in winters with plenty of snowfall in the Alps. In the 15th C. it was home to a robber baron, Erasmus of Lueg, killed during a siege by a cannonball when he was on the toilet!

"Jak się masz?"

Back seat driver. #Finn #GSP

A good innings & an inspiration from my childhood on.

High Wild Boar populations this autumn are breaking down fences & wreaking havoc with the grape harvest, destroying hundreds of kgs of grapes in a night & even pushing over 50 y.o 2m pergola vines to get at the fruit. They've destroyed the turf in my favourite hay meadow too. 😥