Wild Geese On The Elbe

The great horde of birds that brighten the shore with their endless talking and frequent flying around is the only reason the river still flows with the wildness of the natural world. You sit and stare as this community of creatures creates a city where once was only some tall grass and a few rusted boats abandoned in the sand. Without such splendid scenes, the afternoon sun would set and not a single soul would remember to recognize the earth's ancient beauty. The River Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia, then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg. Its total length is 1,094 kilometres (680 mi). The Elbe River basin, comprising the Elbe and its tributaries, has a catchment area of 148,268 square kilometres (57,247 sq mi), the fourth largest in Europe. The basin spans four countries, with its largest parts in Germany (65.5%) and the Czech Republic (33.7%). Much smaller parts lie in Austria (0.6%) and Poland (0.2%). The basin is inhabited by 24.5 million people. The Elbe has been navigable by commercial vessels since 1842, and provides important trade links as far inland as Prague. By the Treaty of Versailles the navigation on the Elbe became subject to the International Commission of the Elbe, seated in Dresden. The statute of the Commission was signed in Dresden on February 22, 1922. Following articles 363 and 364 of the Treaty of Versailles, Czechoslovakia was entitled to lease its own harbour bassin, Moldauhafen in Hamburg. The contract of lease with Germany, and supervised by the United Kingdom, was signed on February 14, 1929 and will end in 2028, since 1993 the Czech Republic holds the former Czechoslovak legal position. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/people/miastodzwiekow/sounds/127195/