Fährinsel is a small

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

island off the eastern shore of the island of

Hiddensee Hiddensee () is a Auto-free zone, car-free island in the Baltic Sea, located west of Germany's largest island, Rügen, on the Germany, German coast. The island has about 1,000 inhabitants. It was a holiday destination for East Germany, East Germ ...

and which belongs to the Insel Hiddensee municipality. It is separated from Hiddensee by the narrow ''Bäk'', only 120 metres wide in places. It forms the western part of the border between the

Schaproder Bodden The Schaproder Bodden is a ''bodden'' on the Baltic Sea coast between the island of Hiddensee in the west and the islands of Rügen and Ummanz in the east. To the north the Schaproder Bodden is linked to the Vitter Bodden by the so-called ''Trog ...

and the

Vitter Bodden The Vitter Bodden is a type of lagoon called a ''bodden'' between the northern part of the island of Hiddensee (with the Neubessin and Altbessin peninsulas) to the west and north and the peninsula of Bug, the Wieker Bodden and the northern part o ...

. The island is 1.23 km long and up to 580 metres wide. It has an area of ca. 37 ha. Ferry services between

Rügen Rügen (; Rani: ''Rȯjana'', ''Rāna''; , ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The "gateway" to Rügen island is the Hanseatic ci ...

and Hiddensee used to run via Fährinsel. It was closed in 1952 when the port at

Schaprode Schaprode is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the n ...

was upgraded to handle mailboat services. Fährinsel is a

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, funga, or features of geologic ...

and out-of-bounds to visitors. It is a roosting place for thousands of birds and the grazing area for a herd of

Gotland Gotland (; ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a Provinces of Sweden, province/Counties of Sweden, county (Swedish län), Municipalities of Sweden, municipality, a ...

sheep.

Geography

Fährinsel consists of a fan of several berms, up to 2 metres high, and spits, as well as silted-up areas of the lagoon, the Schaproder Bodden. About 12,500 years ago, during the last cold phase of the ice age, glacial ice masses piled up sand and gravel. When the ice retreated, the Dornbusch on Hiddensee, as well as two ridges of

glacial till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

running westwards from

, belonged to a vast Young Drift landscape in the southern

region. One ridge formed the heights of the island of Ummanz and the

Gellen The Gellen or Gellen Peninsula () is a spit at the southern end of the island of Hiddensee off the north German Baltic coast. Its southern part is protected as an important bird reserve and is part of protection zone I of the Western Pomerania Lag ...

peninsula, another ran between Trent via the present ''Stolper Haken'' near Seehof northwards from

to the Fährinsel. Following the flooding of the region around Rügen and Hiddensee about 3,900 years ago, the aforementioned

end moraine A terminal moraine, also called an end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front e ...

s remained behind as islands. Not until much later (2,900 years ago) did abrasion begin, mainly as a result of breakers. Numerous spits and bars formed and Hiddensee was given its elongated shape. The block of till between Rügen and Fährinsel was eroded and, at some point, it must have been breached. When the remaining

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff or rock face is an area of Rock (geology), rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. ...

section on the Fährinsel was abraded, southward running spits formed due to the currents from the northeast flowing past both sides of the northern tip of the island. The narrow bays, lagoons and runnels (''Riegen'') between the spits slowly filled with organic material and silted up. Fährinsel is covered by a dense growth of

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' ( ) of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere as far south ...

on the old

berms A berm is a level space, shelf, or raised barrier (usually made of Soil compaction, compacted soil) separating areas in a vertical way, especially partway up a long slope. It can serve as a terrace road, track, path, a fortification line, a b ...

. Between the berms an undergrowth of heather has developed. Reeds and

salt meadow A salt marsh, saltmarsh or salting, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It i ...

vegetation grows in the silted-up zones. In the lagoons, sedge and bog plants predominate. On the eastern shore of the island, a

flint field Flint fields () are large natural deposits of flint. They are found in numerous Jurassic and Cretaceous beds across the whole of Europe.peninsula of Bug and the

Bessin Bessin () is an area in Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Norman ...

were not as long as they are today. At the Stolper Haken is a counterpart of the rampart on the Fährinsel. Headlands on the Fährinsel are the ''Mövenort'', no longer recognizable as a spit in the central region, and the ''Buschort'', its southern tip. In the centre is a frequently-flooded salt meadow landscape, the ''Roschen'', which is only 40 cm above the level of the Baltic Sea. Off the island to the southeast is the island of Bullenriff, which measures only 85 by 80 metres, and is sometimes called ''Kuhwerder''. The name indicates that it used to be intensively grazed. It is, like the ''Roschen'', very flat and only covered by typical salt meadow vegetation.

Bird world

Despite the loss of several breeding species (including

oystercatcher The oystercatchers are a group of waders forming the family (biology), family Haematopodidae, which has a single genus, ''Haematopus''. They are found on coasts worldwide apart from the polar regions and some tropical regions of Africa and Sout ...

s and

ruff Ruff may refer to: Places *Ruff, Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community *Ruff, Washington, United States, an unincorporated community Other uses *Ruff (bird) (''Calidris pugnax'' or ''Philomachus pugnax''), a bird in the wader famil ...

, and reductions in the populations of others, Fährinsel still has high importance as a breeding area. This is partly due to the fact it remains out of bounds and partly because of its special landscape.

Shelduck The shelducks, most species of which are found in the genus ''Tadorna'' (except for the Radjah shelduck, which is now found in its own monotypic genus ''Radjah''), are a group of large birds in the Tadorninae subfamily of the Anatidae, the biolog ...

nest between the juniper bushes nest and it is one of the most important breeding sites for

red-breasted merganser The red-breasted merganser (''Mergus serrator'') is a duck species that is native to much of the Northern Hemisphere. The red breast that gives the species its common name is only displayed by males in breeding plumage. Individuals fly rapidly ...

in the Hiddensee area. On the Roschen there are breeding colonies of many black-headed,

common Common may refer to: As an Irish surname, it is anglicised from Irish Gaelic surname Ó Comáin. Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Com ...

and

Mediterranean gull The Mediterranean gull (''Ichthyaetus melanocephalus'') is a small gull. The scientific name is from Ancient Greek. The genus ''Ichthyaetus'' is from ''ikhthus'', "fish", and ''aetos'', "eagle", and the specific ''melanocephalus'' is from ''mel ...

teal alt=American teal duck (male), Green-winged teal (male) Teal is a greenish-blue color. Its name comes from that of a bird—the Eurasian teal (''Anas crecca'')—which presents a similarly colored stripe on its head. The word is often used ...

also breed here. The

is an example of the extinction of a bird species on Hiddensee. Even in the 19th century it still occurred in the salt meadows south of Kloster and on Fährinsel in stable numbers. But around 1940/1950 it died out as a result of egg stealing by foxes and people. The

common tern The common tern (''Sterna hirundo'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, its four subspecies breeding in Temperateness, temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America. It is stron ...

and

Sandwich tern The Sandwich tern (''Thalasseus sandvicensis'') is a tern in the family Laridae. It is very closely related to the lesser crested tern (''T. bengalensis''), Chinese crested tern (''T. bernsteini''), Cabot's tern (''T. acuflavidus''), and el ...

, which until about 1970 occasionally bred here, are no longer seen. Songbirds on the island include the

skylark ''Alauda'' is a genus of larks found across much of Europe, Asia and in the mountains of north Africa, and one of the species (the Raso lark) endemic to the islet of Raso in the Cape Verde Islands Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially ...

white wagtail The white wagtail (''Motacilla alba'') is a small passerine bird in the family Motacillidae, which also includes pipits and longclaws. The species breeds in the Palearctic zone in most of Europe and Asia and parts of North Africa; it also has ...

and

red-backed shrike The red-backed shrike (''Lanius collurio'') is a carnivorous passerine bird and member of the shrike family, Laniidae. Its breeding range stretches from Western Europe east to central Russia. It is migratory and winters in the eastern areas of ...

. During migration periods between March and May and between September and November, waders and ducks gather in large numbers on the meadows and in the shallow ''

bodden Bodden are briny bodies of water often forming lagoons, along the southwestern shores of the Baltic Sea, primarily in Germany's state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. These lagoons can be found especially around the island of Rügen, Usedom and ...

'' waters. Despite its not very exposed location, Fährinsel is occasionally a stopover for various vagrants. Between 28 June and 10 July 1971 one to four

gull-billed tern The gull-billed tern (''Gelochelidon nilotica''), formerly ''Sterna nilotica'', is a tern in the family Laridae. It is widely distributed and breeds in scattered localities in Europe, Asia, northwest Africa, and the Americas. The Australian gul ...

s were observed and on 28 May 1985 an adult rosy starlingDittberner, Hoyer: Die Vogelwelt der Inseln Rügen und Hiddensee – Teil II – Singvögel. p. 137 from central Asia and Southeast Europe stayed on the island. File:Mergus serrator.jpg, Male red-breasted merganser File:Lanius collurio male am.jpg, Red-backed shrike (male) File:Larus canus11.jpg, Common gull File:Shelduck (Tadorna tadorna) (4).jpg, Shelduck

Structures

On the island are several buildings on the western shore. In 1992, the Fährinsel experimental station of the Jena Central Institute of Microbiology and Experimental Therapy was established.

References

Literature

* Günter Möbus: ''Wie Hiddensee zur Insel wurde.'' Helms Verlag, Schwerin 2001, . * Karin Blase, Bernd Blase: ''Hiddensee A–Z.'' Demmler Verlag, 2008 (4. Auflage), . * Herbert Ewe: ''Hiddensee.'' VEB Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 1983. * Arved Jürgensohn: ''Hiddensee, das Capri von Pommern.'' Verlag von Karl Haertel, 1924 (2. Auflage). * Erich Hoyer: ''Vogelführer Insel Hiddensee.'' Verlag u. Naturfotoarchiv, 1996, . * Hartmut Dittberner, Erich Hoyer: ''Die Vogelwelt der Inseln Rügen und Hiddensee – Teil I – Nonpasseres.'' Verlag Erich Hoyer, Galenbeck, 1993, . * Hartmut Dittberner, Erich Hoyer: ''Die Vogelwelt der Inseln Rügen und Hiddensee – Teil II – Singvögel.'' Verlag Erich Hoyer, Galenbeck, 1995, . {{DEFAULTSORT:Fahrinsel Islands of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Uninhabited islands of Germany German islands in the Baltic Nature reserves in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Hiddensee West Rügen Bodden