Wildlife Observation in the Jura Mountains

Wildlife observation and blurry stars.

Lifestyle

A few weeks ago, I scheduled a trip with a friend, who was the former head of the youth sports club. Although I was a sports teacher too, when it comes to an active lifestyle Kobler is in a different league. So, here I was going for a hike with a guy running marathons. Whereas I imagined a leisure hike across even meadows spotting wildlife, Kobler had other ideas.

Plans

We met in the late afternoon and talked about our plans. He suggested to walk the entire 20 kilometres from his home. Luckily, we settled on a compromise as it is common among Swiss. We drove to a village in the Jura mountains from where we had to hike only 10 kilometres and overcome 600 metres in altitude.

Wildlife Observation

My primary aim of this trip – apart from meeting old friends – was to find some wildlife. Thus, I constantly scanned the surrounding for any signs. Moreover, we took some paths I had not walked before, which always makes for some interesting findings. We came across hidden openings in the forest, which are frequently visited by animals for sure. A good indication for this were hunter’s outlooks.

Secretive creature

Desperately looking for wildlife to have an excuse for a break, I recognised a dark spot moving in the distance. Looking through the camera, it became apparent that it was a fox. Recently, I have seen this animal on other occasions too. Kobler and I approached the fence of the meadow, where the fox was walking around, but we lost sight of it. We could not believe it. It had just been there in the middle of green grass and suddenly it was nowhere to be seen.

We waited for some time and within a couple of minutes the fox made a second appearance. This time, it allowed us to take part in a truly spectacular behaviour. Check out the video for more wildlife observation.

Finally

Arriving at our destination, we made ourselves comfortable and enjoyed the stunning evening.

Meanwhile, the lizards around us chased their dinner in the cracks of the Jura limestone.

Night Sky

Later, Silvan – another guy from the sports club – visited us for dinner.

We had great laughs and I took some pictures of the night sky. The night timelapse was ruined though, because I accidentally touched the focus ring, which caused blurry stars.

The following Day

The following day, Kobler ran back to the village and Silvan went home for online classes. Now on my own, I continued to hike along the manifold ridges of the Jura mountains. I still aimed to find wildlife, but apart from a few birds, there was not much to see.

Rewarding Wildlife Observation

Nonetheless, it was a great trip with good friends and the wildlife observation of the fox hunting was a memorable experience.