It was a sunny, very cold December day. We drove around in an area close to the border to Slovakia as we found this unique place by accident. Whereas most of the time man is resposible for the destruction of habitats in this case a sugar refinery creates a paradise for thousands of birds. The factory works up turnips to sugar. They produce a lot of mud when they wash the turnips. The mud is dumped in huge basins. These basins became very important feeding places for various birds because they are rich of nutrients. The factory also releases their hot water ( 30 grad Celsius ) in a cooling lake. This prevents the lake from getting frozen and makes it a perfect place to stay in the winter for thousands of ducks and geese. What looks like fog is just the vapour coming out of the warm lake. Here is a picture of the lake with the sugar refinery in the back:

Picture was taken with Nikon D1 and 80-400VR handheld at 600mm ( equ. ) with 1/125sec. Settings: EV +0.5, Cloudy -3