Wolf Lengwenus

The white chalk cliffs of Rügen are among the most impressive natural monuments on earth, which the painter Casper David Friedrich immortalized for posterity as early as the 19th century. Germany's largest island with its seaside resorts from the Gründerzeit, its smaller side islands and peninsulas that give it its shape, its lagoon-like Bodden waters, the dense beech forests, the yellow rapeseed fields and the meadows, the shady tree avenues and the white sandy beaches is not only a magnet for tourists, but also a unique natural paradise in the middle of the Baltic Sea, a habitat for the rare white-tailed eagle, fallow deer, raccoon dogs and badgers as well as a resting place for huge swarms of migratory birds such as geese and cranes that can be heard trumpeting from afar. In this nature documentary, the unique landscapes and the diversity of the animal world of Rügen are captured with beautiful pictures during the changing of the seasons.

This is the last working narrow gauge steam railway in China. Built 70 years ago to haul coal out of the valley, the 19 km line has evolved to be the main source of transport in the valley carrying children to school, workers to their jobs and pigs to market; all fighting for space in the train's small, unglazed carriages. Now the railway is at a critical point. The mine has shut down and the villagers are fighting to keep the line - and its aging steam locomotives - running. Already the villagers have to make replacement parts by hand. When the boiler goes they face catastrophe. Too large to fabricate themselves, they search far and wide for a company to make a new boiler for them. But even if they can find a new boiler, how can they get it to Jiayang Valley? At a time when attention is focused on China's great leaps in technology, on its maglev and bullet trains, Little Train takes viewers on a journey to the quiet backwaters that are still home to half of China’s population.

Some ficus species are strangler figs. The seeds are eaten by birds and pass through the digestive tract undamaged. If they are excreted on the branch of a tree in the feces of the birds and remain stuck there thanks to the mistletoe-like slimy seed coat, the seeds germinate on the branch. The fig plants grow directly there, so they are initially epiphytes. But their aerial roots grow down to the ground. When the roots reach the ground, the figs begin to grow faster and form many more aerial roots. They gradually enclose their supporting or host tree, which eventually dies, forming a cavity inside the strangler fig. The strangler fig also benefits from the nutrients released during the decomposition of the dead supporting tree.