Raven Rüdiger looking for spring

This is 7 years old Lena. She is the sister of my godchild Leon and to make it a little more confusing, she is also my sisters godchild. This weekend she was supposed to take her class' puppet Raven Rüdiger on a trip and write a report about it until Monday. So my sister and me took the kids for a little outing to the local beach at the river Rhine. We wanted Rüdiger to discover the first signs of spring. And so he did: 

Rüdiger also discovered a small parakeet feather. There is a funny story to it because naturally parakeets are not a common bird in our latitudes. A few years ago though a couple of Rose-ringed parakeets escaped the local zoo and have had a blast in Colognes parks since... As they are originated in the Himalaya, they can cope with the cold winters here very well plus they don't have any natural enemies. Having done a little research on those birds for this post I just found out, that the species of Rose-ringed parakeets has actually immigrated to many different areas in Europe as you can find out here.

To cut it short, there are about 2000 parakeets living in the Cologne area now, giving a little exotic feeling to the scenary crossing the river in flocks with their typical squawking.

After a short break we reached the beach and I was in heaven. Soooo much driftwood!!! And we came by car... The stroller was uploaded to the maximum.

But there was also time enough to discover the small beauties of the beach...

...before Lenas little brother Leon decided to go fishing and walked straight into the water up to his knees to catch the really big fish only to find out that a march river is not very warm yet...

 This afternoon brought us back home very satisfied with our found treasures and promises of spring, lots of stories for Rüdigers report and just the right amount of tiredness to still enjoy some hot porridge with raisins and chai tea before the first of us cuddled up in bed looking forward to another great day to come, full of weekend.