New Year Wishes - At the turn of the year, most people wish for happiness, health, and optimism. As symbols of this longing, chimney sweeps, horseshoes, and marzipan pigs adorn flower arrangements and New Year's doughnuts.

Red Deer - Magnificent antlered animal, sociable herd animal, bellowing warrior: The Cervus elaphus is Germany's Animal of the Year 2026.

Dormice - Today, on September 22nd, autumn begins according to the calendar. While we humans look forward to colourful leaves and cooler days with a cup of tea, dormice in the wild have already put on a good meal.

Hedgehogs - A car ride at dusk, a spiny animal searching for food – a wild animal's life abruptly ended. Hedgehogs usually have no chance against road traffic.

Common toad is barely larger than a 50-cent piece, perfectly camouflaged and fearless: these days, small common toads are leaving their waters.

Wasp - The German wasp and the common wasp are solely responsible for the bad reputation that wasps have.

Scorpion - Wildlife on the balcony - the surprise of finding an alive scorpion was splitting our mind about wildlife, because on the balcony, despite all the love for nature, is it that what you really want?

Wasps - You'll encounter them again and again, as soon as the coffee table is set: wasps. As if attracted by a magnet, they find their way to even the most remote places and sometimes provoke almost panicky resistance by hitting or blowing, fundamentally wrong reactions.

After another long hike through the mountains of Galicica National Park on Lake Ohrid, Sven had invited us for an evening barbeque, which we gladly accepted.

Powerful and impressive are the Hungarian buffalo and gray maidens, with their sometimes magnificent horns, if you dare to get close to them. We were really impressed in Sremska Mitrovica already when it came to the first contact with the magnificent animals in the park Zasavica.

Everyone knows them, at least the chocolate version, but very few people have ever seen a live May beetle up close.

Survey for wildlife rescue shows: In May alone, every drone team invests three working weeks in animal and species protection. One fawn is found per ten hectares. Rare species such as the Montagu's harrier or the Marsh harrier are also discovered.

For the weekend, meteorologists are predicting temperatures of up to 19 degrees in some regions. For hobby gardeners and bumblebee queens, that means: off to the garden!

International Jackal Day on April 19th is still a relatively new anniversary: ​​Initiated by BOKU University Vienna in 2023, it is intended to draw attention to the increasing spread of the golden jackal in Europe – and help publicize new scientific findings on this shy canine relative.

Eyes closed, metabolism down: The garden dormouse, which belongs to the squirrel family, is now preparing for its long hibernation.

The first hedgehog offspring are here! Around seven centimeters long, with around 100 soft spines hidden under the skin, blind, but already with five tiny claws on each paw - this means that there are usually four to five hedgehogs in the protected nest.

Northern Bald Ibis are breeding again in Germany and Austria. 51 of the endangered ibis birds have safely mastered the more than 800-kilometer flight from their winter quarters in Italy.

When the days get warmer and the sun shines, the first butterfly of the year appears: the bright yellow brimstone butterfly (Genopteryx rhamnis) can be seen in parks and gardens with its typical flight - sometimes it rises up, then it drops down.

It's that time again, Easter is fast approaching and every child knows the Easter bunny - but very few people know about the "original", the European brown hare.

While the marching bands march through the carnival strongholds on Rose Monday to the sound of drums, a completely different performance takes place in the forests; Here attentive walkers can hear the drum roll of the black woodpecker.