A cluster of mushrooms spring up from a thin layer of moss which sits atop all that remains of a tree – the first step towards a more complete takeover of the space no doubt.

Spotted in Grünewald, a stunning and huge park in Berlin.

I saw someone post something recently under a #shroomscrolling tag and I thought that’s good enough to occasionally swap out for my usual bloomscrolling posts on a Friday.

Another lake which dotted the route of our walk along (part of) the 400km “66 Lakes Trail” that encircles Berlin. It really is so rewarding, relaxing, and renewing to get out in nature and away from the busy city.

Vowing to do more walks this summer than last

You can see One of 66 here.

I had literally no idea that racoons existed in the wild in Europe until I bumped into this exceedingly wet critter on a forest walk nearly Jelenin in Poland after a torrential summer rainstorm.

It turns out that racoons were intentionally released into the wild in Germany in 1934, when four raccoons were released near Lake Edersee, and later on another 25 individuals escaped a fur farm in 1945. They have now established themselves across 27 countries in Europe, and unfortunately are causing problems for some native species.

I guess their ‘cute’ factor does not help with public feelings towards eradication programs..

I had often seen the gilded dome of the restored synagogue in Berlin when passing in front, and I finally went to visit it in 2023.

What I hadn’t realised is that they had left the main hall of the synagogue demolished – and it leaves quite a strong impression when you see it exposed like this. Luckily we have two people at the bottom of the image to really drive home how huge this structure is.

A fascinating architectural detail from the Museum of the Avantgarde in Dresden. The ceiling/floor above appears to be hanging in mid-air, not touching the central concrete column. Heightening the impact of the effect is the light emitting from a hidden spot above, such that the concrete disappears into pure brightness – there is no indication of an end.

The lack of reference points in the image also leaves us with nothing from which we can work out the scale of the shapes involved – and the textured concrete, no doubt imprinted on wooden boards as it was setting, seem to lend their textures to the blown out white. You can almost reach out and touch the light and feel its roughness.

Perhaps this is just an architectural photo, but I’m including it in my abstract weekends because I love how the shapes and lines take over from “what it is”.

But for those curious as to what it actually is – at Werderscher Markt in Berlin’s Mitte district stands the Federal Foreign Office (in German “Auswärtiges Amt”). The agency occupies two buildings, one of which was the former Reichsbank building. Here pictured is the a modern annex, built to enlarge the facilities for the Federal agency.

The building plays a neat trick, looking as though it has only glass windows occupying the entirety of each floor. From what I can tell there are ‘external’ windows which provide this illusion, and ‘internal’ windows which are interspersed with the traditionally very necessary concrete supports!

Another blur of bodies, unknown stories, unresolved paths. One seems clipped, shorn in two – but is perhaps emerging from behind an object. A hand melds with a face, shoulder and arm shrink into each other.

Taken at Positions, the huge art market that takes over Flughafen Berlin during the annual Berlin Art Week.

I’m about as confident as can be that this is Thunbergia alata, aka Black-eyed Susan Vine – a five-petalled flower with an eye-catching black hole in its centre. Funnily the nickname is also given to certain Rudbeckia flowers, but I think it feels even more apt for Thunbergia alata.

This flower was spotted in the excellent Gardens of the World in Berlin.

Feels hard to believe that a little over a month ago the lake at Fennpfuhl was still completely frozen. It’s a little hard to tell in this photo, but if you look closely you’ll see the lake surface has little puddles all over it in between dark ice.

The weather had just turned and we’d gone from -11c to +17c in a very short space of time. So we were wandering around in beautiful spring weather and the lake was still a big block of ice slowly melting.

I love the willow tree near the centre of the photo, beautiful colours even in winter, and lit up by the sun here it’s especially lovely – not to mention the lone human at the base of the tree soaking up the rays, a welcome change.

As seems to happen every time we visit Tierpark Berlin, we find another section that we’ve never seen before. This time I was absolutely floored to see before me a Steller’s Sea Eagle. A bird of outstanding beauty, which is considered to be the heaviest eagle in the world, weighing in between a whopping 5 to 10Kg.

I couldn’t help but anthropomorphise that this particular bird had a very serious face, as though it’s just realised that job opportunities are going to be a lot scarcer for its children than for itself.

The bird cages were reasonably big, but it really felt like they could do with being at least double the size. Hopefully they are at least contributing well to breeding programmes and genetic diversity as was the case with the Bearded Vulture we saw there.