Rossitten Bird Observatory

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Location of the ornithological station between the Baltic Sea and the Curonian Lagoon

The ornithological station in Rossitten was located between 1901 and 1944 in Rossitten (today: Rybatschi ) on the Curonian Spit on the edge of the Baltic Sea in East Prussia . The ornithological research station was initially supported by the German Ornithological Society and the University of Königsberg , from 1923 it belonged to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society .

The ornithological station in Rossitten was the first ornithological research station in the world and achieved a worldwide reputation for its pioneering work. Since 1946 their work has been continued by the Radolfzell Ornithological Institute on Lake Constance , since 1998 as a department of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology . A Russian ornithological station in today's Rybatschi is also a successor to the Rossitten ornithological station.

history

Rossitten Ornithological Museum from 1931

In the second half of the 19th century a scientific ornithology emerged that was strongly influenced by empirical research. During a visit to the Curonian Spit in 1896 , the ornithologist Johannes Thienemann witnessed a " bird migration , so enormous as it had never been seen in Germany before". On the narrow stretch of land, the flight paths of the birds that avoid the open water condense like a bottle neck: at peak times up to two million birds a day.

1901 to 1944

Based on a suggestion by Georg Rörig in 1899 and Thienemann's initiative, an "ornithological-biological observation station" was founded in Rossitten on January 1st, 1901, that is, in the southern third of the elongated peninsula. Its first director was Johannes Thienemann. In 1923 the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science took over the station and incorporated it into its research network. Thienemann retired in 1929, Oskar Heinroth took over the formal management from Berlin, while Ernst Schüz coordinated the work as curator on site. In 1936 Schüz also became the official head of the ornithological station.

The ornithological station in Rossitten was in close contact with the Albertina scientific society in Königsberg and with the behavioral scientist Konrad Lorenz , who held a chair at the Albertus University in Königsberg from 1940 . Under Ernst Schüz the ringing of birds as a scientific method was further developed in Rossitten , he also enriched the work of the ornithological station with physiological and ecological issues.

The institute with the work and business premises of the ornithological station was located in a spacious villa in the vicinity of the church. In 1931, a museum for visitors was opened right next door in a new wood-paneled building on Kirchstrasse, with an outdoor area in the immediate vicinity. Next to the Kurhaus there was a pond with a winter cottage and a stork herd as a test population.

The Reich Nature Conservation Act of 1937 only provided for the maintenance of the three coastal bird observatories: the ornithological station Helgoland , Rossitten and the ornithological station Hiddensee . They had the privilege of ringing birds. This deprived the South German Ornithological Institute, based in Radolfzell on Lake Constance , of its livelihood and its right to exist; The only inland ornithological station in Germany at the time was therefore closed for financial reasons.

tasks

One of the tasks set by the ornithological station was, in particular, the observation of bird migration, subdivided into nine sub-areas such as migration time of the individual species, direction, height and speed of migration. However, the tasks also included observing the way of life of the birds, assessing the economic value of the birds, improving bird protection, setting up a bird collection as well as obtaining research material for scientific institutes and finally also disseminating knowledge of the local bird life.

Branch offices

The Ulmenhorst was from 1908 an observation station for the ornithological station , which was built about six kilometers south of the main building in the dune belt. It was destroyed by "revolutionaries" after the First World War, rebuilt in 1926 with donations, including donations from Dutch bird lovers, and used until 1944. It bore the inscription on the gable: "To the glory of God and his nature". Research was carried out not least on water birds that could be found at the Möwenbruch , not far from Rossitten , the only freshwater lake on the spit.

Ernst Schüz built another outstation with an ornithological station at the Drausensee near Elbing . The bird paradise Drausensee has been described many times. One could observe the bird migration on the steamboat trip on the Oberland Canal for hours . Cruises on the Oberland Canal still take place today.

After 1945

New beginning in Germany

Due to the war, the ornithological station was abandoned in October 1944 and the library and scientific material evacuated from Rossitten; Schüz "immediately after the end of the war collected the stocks of the ornithological station that had been outsourced in many places, as far as they could be reached, and looked for new accommodation for the institute." Ornithologist had headed the second ringing station in Baden at the Rossitten ornithological station for a long time. “The institution, known since then as the Radolfzell Vogelwarte , was attached to Gustav Kramer's department at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology on April 1 , 1959 while trying to take young rock pigeons from their nests, fell from a steep face in Italy and died. Thereupon the line was first transferred to Konrad Lorenz and from 1967 to Jürgen Aschoff . From 1998 the Radolfzell Vogelwarte was a department of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology , and since May 2019 the Radolfzell site has been part of the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior , based in Constance .

New beginning in the Soviet Union

In Rybatschi, Russia, in the Kaliningrad Oblast , the “Biological Station” is a branch of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg . Since this sponsoring organization canceled all grants due to its poor economic situation, the research has been largely financed by donations and, since 1997, by the German Heinz Sielmann Foundation . The animal filmmaker Heinz Sielmann , who grew up in Königsberg, collected 500,000 marks for the ornithological station in 2001. His wife Inge Sielmann, the chairwoman of the board of trustees, continues to provide financial support to the Rossitten ornithological station (2010). The German Federal Environment Foundation also helps.

Today's Russian field station "Fringilla", which is in the tradition of the old ornithological station, is located at 55 ° 09 ′ 13 ″ north, 20 ° 51 ′ 27 ″ east about 200 m as the crow flies from the old station.

The stately institute building of the German ornithological station Rossitten (the villa with the work and business premises) in Kirchstrasse (today Ul. Gagarina) no longer exists (2013) - completely intact until 1944. Only the sign “Rossitten Vogelwarte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft” is still there; it was moved to the building of the branch of the Zoological Institute of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in Rybatschi (formerly a German spa hotel). There are also illustrated, German-language information boards on the history of the Rossitten ornithological station and its directors Johannes Thienemann and Ernst Schüz. The museum, built in 1931, ended its function in 1944, the building still exists, but with a greatly simplified exterior, an extension and a different function. The former home of Thienemann in today's Ul. Pobedy (Straße des Sieges), in the direction of the Haffufer, still exists, but it has been significantly changed and with additions. A wooden plaque labeled in two languages ​​indicates the founder of the ornithological station. Text: "In this house lived ... the well-known ... German ornithologist ... Thienemann, the founder of the Rossitten ornithological station". The Ulmenhorst observation post no longer exists.

Bird migration research

Catching and Bering, 1939
First results of the ringing: Map of the migration of the black-headed gull (1910)
First results of the ringing: Map of the hooded crow's migration (1910)

The first rings for researching bird migration - especially on hooded crows , but also on rooks - had already been given under Thiemann's leadership in 1903. In 1904 he published an appeal "to hunters, forest officials, farmers, bird lovers, gardeners, to everyone in general" in the Forstwissenschaftlichen Centralblatt :

“The ornithological station Rossiten will begin a series of practical experiments in autumn this year, which are expected to provide quite remarkable information about some of the darkest questions about bird migration, such as the direction and speed of migration. As is probably already known in wider circles, hundreds, possibly thousands of crows are caught by the natives with nets for food purposes on the Curonian Spit in every migration season, autumn and spring. A large number of these birds should now be drawn by a metal ring placed around the foot and provided with a number and year and then immediately set free again. The capture of such drawn animals will always lead to interesting conclusions. The experiment should be continued for several years and if possible on a large scale. When we then have hundreds, if the resources of the station allow it, thousands of drawn crows in Germany and the neighboring countries, then the experiment can open up completely new perspectives on the distribution of a bird species and also on the much-discussed question of age the birds provide information. "

The description of the procedure was followed by the appeal,

"Pay attention to the animals' feet when capturing crows"

and to send existing rings to the ornithological station - "all expenses will be reimbursed, the crow will be paid on request" - as well as a special request to the farmers,

“Who sometimes poison large numbers of crows on their property. They may take the relatively little trouble to have the surrounding cadavers examined. "

In fact, Thiemann's experiment, which was inspired by his teacher Hans Christian Cornelius Mortensen , quickly led to success:

“After a few years, he was able to show the migration routes of individual species for the first time using the ring finds; the ornithological station in Rossitten thus set the pace for global development. "

These results contributed to the fact that the ornithological station was separated from the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in 1923.

At the beginning of the 1920s, the natural scientist Max Hinsche and the ornithologist Paul Bernhardt (* February 5, 1886 in Mittweida , † May 29, 1952 in Moritzburg ), with the support of the State Museum of Animal Science Dresden, went to the Rossiten and the Helgoland ornithological station ringed hundreds of breeding and resting and guest bird populations. A total of around one million birds had been ringed by 1944.

The annual activity reports of the ornithological station published in the journal Die Naturwissenschaften show that dozens of publications were made in specialist journals; Since January 1, 1930, the journal Der Vogelzug has been published quarterly - in association with the German Ornithological Society and the Helgoland Ornithological Institute , the successor of which from 1948 was Die Vogelwarte (since 2004: Vogelwarte - Zeitschrift für Vogelkunde ). In 1931 Ernst Schüz and Hugo Weigold (Vogelwarte Helgoland) published a detailed synopsis of their research in the atlas of bird migration based on the ringing results in Palearctic birds .

Impressions

  • Watching Birds Flight (1939)

  • Former bird museum (2013)

  • Entrance to the Fringilla field station (2011)

  • Field station Fringilla (2011)

  • Safety nets of the Fringilla field station (2011)

literature

  • Johannes Thienemann : The ornithological station Rossitten of the German Ornithological Society and the identification of the birds. Paul Parey, Berlin 1910, digitized
  • Johannes Thienemann: Rossitten. Three decades on the Curonian Spit . J. Neumann Publishing House, Neudamm 1938
  • Ernst Schüz : Radolfzell Vogelwarte (formerly Rossitten Vogelwarte). In: General administration of the Max Planck Society (ed.): Yearbook of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, 1961, Part II. Göttingen, 1962, pp. 779–788.
  • Eberhard Gwinner , Wolfgang Wickler : Radolfzell Vogelwarte . Max Planck Society - reports and communications, 6/87, Max Planck Society Munich, ISSN  0341-7778
  • Hans Kramer : Elk forest. Land, people, hunting , 3rd edition. Jagd- und Kulturverlag, Sulzberg im Allgäu 1990, ISBN 3-925456-00-7
  • "Fringilla" field station: Brochure of the "Circle of Friends for the Promotion of Animal and Bird Protection in the Area of ​​the Curonian Spit and Rybatschy (formerly Rossitten)" eV, 2013 (or earlier)
  • Vogelwarte Rossitten of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society / Vogelwarte Radolfzell (formerly Rossitten Vogelwarte) of the Kaiser Wilhelm / Max Planck Society. In: Eckart Henning , Marion Kazemi : Handbook on the history of the institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm / Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science 1911–2011. Data and sources. Berlin 2016, 2 volumes, volume 2: Institutes and research centers MZ ( digitized version, PDF, 75 MB) , pp. 1646–1654 (chronology of the ornithological station).

Web links

Commons : Vogelwarte Rossitten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johannes Thienemann : I. annual report (1901.) of the ornithological station Rossitten of the German Ornithological Society. In: Journal of Ornithology. Volume 50, No. 2, 1902, pp. 137–209, digitized .
  2. ↑ a b From the Prussian Desert to the Swabian Sea. ( Memento of August 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Published in: MaxPlanckForschung. No. 3/2001, pp. 68-73.
  3. ↑ a b General Administration of the Max Planck Society (ed.): Radolfzell Vogelwarte at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology. In: Max Planck Society: Reports and communications. No. 2, Munich 1976, p. 12.
  4. ↑ Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior. On: mpg.de , last viewed on November 12, 2019.
  5. ↑ Kurt Geisler: Drawbridge of the birds .
  6. ↑ Johannes Thienemann: The ornithological station Rossiten. In: Forstwissenschaftliches Centralblatt. Volume 26, No. 4, 1904, p. 249, doi: 10.1007 / BF01864537 .
  7. ↑ Rossitten ornithological station of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, Rossitten (Curonian Spit). In: The natural sciences . Volume 18, No. 20/21 of May 16, 1930, p. 511.
  8. ↑ Hugo Weigold , Ernst Schüz: Atlas of bird migration according to the ringing results in Palearctic birds. Friedländer, Berlin 1931.

Coordinates: 55 ° 9 ′ 8.2 ″  N , 20 ° 51 ′ 16.5 ″  E