The Blinde Rot, also called the Adelmannsfelder Rot, is a river in the

Ellwangen Hills The Ellwangen Hills () are a hill ridge, up to , in the counties of Schwäbisch Hall and Ostalbkreis in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The name of the range comes from the town of Ellwangen. The hills are known nationally especially ...

in the north of the German state of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

, that rises in the municipality

Frankenhardt Frankenhardt is a rural Gemeinde (municipality) in the district of Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It consists of thirty-nine villages, hamlets and other settlements. The largest village is Honhardt, followed by Gründelhardt ...

and discharges into the

Kocher The Kocher () is a -longincluding its source river Schwarzer Kocher right tributary of the Neckar in the north-eastern part of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The name "Kocher" originates from its Celtic name "cochan" and probably means winding, m ...

in the municipality of

Abtsgmünd Abtsgmünd is a municipality in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, in Ostalbkreis district. Abtsgmünd is located at the confluence of two streams, the Lein and the Kocher. The large area municipality consists of the main town of Abtsgmünd ...

Geography

The Blinde Rot rises on the gravel sandstone plateau on the northern foothills of the Ellwangen Hills, flows shortly thereafter through the lake of Fleckenbachsee and then

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the Channel (geography), channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erosion, erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank (cut bank, cut bank or river cl ...

s southwards through river meadows, before swinging abruptly west in front of the Hornberg hill, about 2 km before emptying into the

near Schäufele. The whole length of its valley lies on the Middle Keuper rocks. Its neighbouring rivers, which run through valleys roughly parallel to the Blinde Rot to the west as east, the

Bühler Bühler is a municipality in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Switzerland. History Bühler is first mentioned in 1479 as ''Ullrich Büllershoff''. Geography Bühler has an area, , of . Of this area, 62.7% is used for agricultural purpo ...

and the

Jagst The Jagst () is a right tributary of the Neckar in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The source of this 190 km long river is in the hills east of Ellwangen, close to the Bavarian border. The Jagst winds through the towns of Ellwangen, Cra ...

, both flow in the opposite direction, i.e. to the north.

Tributaries

The tributaries of the Blinde Rot from source to mouth are:

Environment and protected areas

The Blinde Rot initially flows through a very shallow depression, but from about Willa it cut more deeply and nowhere exceeds a maximum width of 150 metres. Mostly enclosed on both sides by wooded slopes, a small-scale, natural river landscape has survived on the valley floor. Pastures and meadows alternate here with woods, including elsewhere rare carrs. The river winds freely through both in natural meanders with steep and gently banks, accompanied by sandbanks, oxbow lakes and pools that are slowly silting up. The upper reaches, the valley from the village of Bühlerzell to the hamlet of Grafenhof, are designated as a

protected landscape IUCN protected area categories, or IUCN protected area management categories, are categories used to classify protected areas in a system developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The enlisting of such areas is part ...

. This reserve was formed by a local act issued by the Ostalbkreis district office on 5 May 1994 and covers an area of 358 hectares. Immediately thereafter until the Burghardmühle mill below Adelmannsfelden is the protected landscape known as the "Valley of the Blinde Rot". It covers 84.5 hectares and was established on 20 December 1968.

Fauna

The nature reserve of the Valley of the Blinde Rot (''Naturschutzgebiet Tal der Blinde Rot'') is a habitat rich in fauna. In the valley, 28 breeding bird species have been observed, including the

white-throated dipper The white-throated dipper (''Cinclus cinclus''), also known as the European dipper or just dipper, is an aquatic passerine bird found in Europe, Middle East, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent. The species is divided into several subspecies ...

, the

common kingfisher The common kingfisher (''Alcedo atthis''), also known as the Eurasian kingfisher and river kingfisher, is a small kingfisher with seven subspecies recognized within its wide distribution across Eurasia and North Africa. It is resident in much of ...

, the

Eurasian woodcock The Eurasian woodcock (''Scolopax rusticola'') is a medium-small wader, wading bird found in temperate and subarctic Palearctic realm, Eurasia. It has Camouflage#Cryptic coloration in nature, cryptic camouflage to suit its woodland habitat, with ...

and the

marsh warbler The marsh warbler (''Acrocephalus palustris'') is an Old World warbler currently classified in the family Acrocephalidae. It breeds in temperate Europe and the western Palearctic and winters mainly in southeast Africa. It is notable for incorpor ...

. Two reptiles are native here: the

viviparous lizard The viviparous lizard or common lizard (''Zootoca vivipara'', formerly ''Lacerta vivipara'') is a Eurasian lizard. It lives farther north than any other non-marine reptile species, and is named for the fact that it is viviparous, meaning it give ...

and

slowworm The common slow worm (''Anguis fragilis'') is a species of legless lizard native to western Eurasia. It is also called a deaf adder, blindworm, or regionally, a long-cripple, steelworm, and hazelworm. The "blind" in blindworm refers to the lizar ...

, and the 7 species of amphibian include the

fire salamander The fire salamander (''Salamandra salamandra'') is a common species of salamander found in Europe. It is black with yellow spots or stripes to a varying degree; some specimens can be nearly completely black while on others the yellow is dominant ...

and

yellow-bellied toad The yellow-bellied toad (''Bombina variegata'') belongs to the order Anura, the family Bombinatoridae, and the genus of fire-bellied toads. The toad is distributed mainly across western Europe as well as a handful of countries in eastern Eur ...

. In the waters of the Blinde Rot live the rare

river trout ''Salmo trutta fario'', sometimes called the river trout, is a river-dwelling freshwater predatory fish from the genus ''Salmo'' of the family Salmonidae. It is one of the three main subspecies of the brown trout (''Salmo trutta''), besides sea ...

and the endangered

brook lamprey The brook lamprey (''Lampetra planeri''), also known as the European brook lamprey and the western brook lamprey is a small European lamprey species that exclusively inhabits freshwater environments. The species is related to, but distinct from, ...

, and on the floodplain are numerous species of butterfly and dragonfly.

Flora

Along the shore of the blind red are

Alnus glutinosa ''Alnus glutinosa'', the common alder, black alder, European alder, European black alder, or just alder, is a species of tree in the family (biology), family Betulaceae, native plant, native to most of Europe, southwest Asia and northern Africa. ...

and

willows Willows, also called sallows and osiers, of the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions. Most species are known ...

. In the extensively farmed wetlands still grow Trollius europaeus. In the wetlands to find the source bulrush and various sedges like the Yellow, the tassel visible, the felt and the fox sedge. An orchid that come Broad, the meat red and the rare green-winged orchid in the valley before, else the yellow aconite and the forest-Columbine.

Water quality

The blind was red with 2004 levels detected over her for this run from about the inflow of Geißbachs lightly loaded (class I-II).

History

In the catchment area, which is more than half covered by forests, forestry was formerly predominantly characterised by

charcoal burning Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...

resins A resin is a solid or highly viscous liquid that can be converted into a polymer. Resins may be biological or synthetic in origin, but are typically harvested from plants. Resins are mixtures of organic compounds, predominantly terpenes. Comm ...

, and especially the extraction of timber. It was processed in sawmills into sawn timber, but most of it was used as fuel, turned into firewood for those living in the valley. Most of the timber from the forests was transported along the Blinde Rot and Kocher to

Schwäbisch Hall Schwäbisch Hall (; 'Swabian Hall'; from 1802 until 1934 and colloquially: ''Hall'') is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg located in the valley of the Kocher river, the longest tributary (together with its headwater Lein) of the N ...

where the

saltworks A saltern is an area or installation for making salt. Salterns include modern salt-making works (saltworks), as well as hypersaline waters that usually contain high concentrations of halophilic microorganisms, primarily haloarchaea but also oth ...

had a great demand for firewood.

Sights and structures

*Fleckenbachsee lake and Fleckenbach Sawmill *Middle reaches of the river with oxbow lakes, sandstone rocks and several steep side valleys *St. James' pilgrimage church in Hohenberg in Rosenberg about 3 km east of the river at a height of 568 metres on the ''Zeugenberg'' *Adelmannsfelden Castle

Economy

Waterpower used to be used in the valley of the Blinde Rot to drive several sawmills, paper and oil mills. There is still a small sawmill at Betzenhof.Personal observation around 2005. On the Ludwigsmühle below Willa is a medium-sized woodmill. Hydropower is still used today at four locations in the valley.

Importance as a transport route

In the valley, there are hardly any roads along the river. Apart from, the L 1060 at Willa and the L 1073 in Adelmannsfelden are no maintained roads of more than local significance.

References

{{Authority control Rivers of Baden-Württemberg Ellwangen Hills Rivers of Germany