The flora and fauna of the Rye Island has moved onto our walls. Dragon-flies etched in copper run riot on the marble floor, and we glued a dragon-fly made of Czech crystal onto the glass door. The local gamekeeper lent us a stuffed stag head, which we gave to our ceramicist, who made a small masterpiece from it.
There are a lot of frogs here; they even climb up the door handles. According to local beliefs, Rye Island is a huge frog. Kukkónia was a marshy, swampy region, full of mysterious water spirits, who appeared on earth in the form of frogs with big bellies. Even the old name of Rye Island, KUKKÓNIA refers to a frog. The fire-bellied toad makes sounds like kuk-kuk. The locals imitated this in warning of the approach of the Tartars. (The Turks later avoided the region; they were unfamiliar with the area, got lost and often ended up sinking into the marsh.)
The cormorant is an indigenous bird. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were a few nests only HERE, but today they have multiplied. It’s a veritable „fish wolf”; a single cormorant consumes 170 kilos of fish every year. The one on the photo is made of driftwood found on the banks of the Danube.
The lambs live at one end of the garden. Here they are enjoying the young and tender spring grass. The lamb, Lujza got a lovely new friend Stella and the rooster Pitypang [Dandelion] is scratching the ground with his hens.