About 45 minutes south of Munich, the pre-Alps start, and we headed to the Benediktenwand, a limestone ridge just over 1800m tall.
There were plenty of butterflies on the wing, including 'the usual' Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral, Brimstone and Silver-washed Fritillary, but also a whole load of tricky and seemingly identical 'browns'.
From the top: Large Wall, Arran Brown, Woodland Ringlet and Silver-washed Fritillary.
At the Tutzinger Hutte, a noisy family of Kestrels were busy screeching away, a couple of Ravens cronked over head and a Buzzard mewed. In the lea of the mountain, a large group of House Martins had gathered to feed up before the not-far-off day comes when they decide to hop over the mountains and head south: summer done with so soon! Behind them, a familiar-yet-unfamiliar crow-ish calling from the trees turned out to be a couple of Nutcrackers, who flopped and chased across from one patch of pines to another, while a Fieldfare shouted at them.
Alas, we didn't make it over to the north side of the ridge, where Alpine Ibex are apparently common... next time!
Wandering through the woodland, I came across a couple of apparently very common plants that were new to me, having only previously visited the Alps in spring and early summer...
Prenanthes purpurea, a pretty almost-lettuce.
Salvia glutinosa, the aptly-named Sticky Sage (it was very sticky...)
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