Mating

Spring is a time of rapid changes; trees blossom, flowers appear in the fields, migrant songbirds arrive, butterflies float in the air. But this year is really exceptional; I have never witnessed a spring that develops so quickly, it is almost explosive. There are just too many things happening at the same time.
For quite some time I have a photo in my mind of Orange Tips (Anthocharis cardamines/Oranjetip) in a field full of Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis/Pinksterbloem) loaded with dewdrops in a backlit setting. Several mornings this week I got up early and went to such a Cuckooflower field near my home village Nuenen just before work. But unfortunately, I didn’t find any Orange Tips. However, at the end of the afternoon, while returning from work, I stopped again, put my bike against a tree, and could take this picture. I hope the mating makes up for the dewdrops and the promised against-the-light shot. Besides, it is always good to have some wishes open and unfulfilled for later.

Dutch Jurassic

Reptiles are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates that have skin covered in scales as opposed to hair or feathers. In northern countries like The Netherlands there are a limited number of species that can survive; to be precise we have 3 snake species and 4 lizard species. They are all rare and hard to found. In the National Park “De Meinweg” I found 2 of them. The typical green ♂ Sand Lizard (Lacerta agilis/Zandhagedis) that looks like a miniature dragon and the aggressive and poisonous (!) ♀ Viper (Vipera berus/Adder). In cool summers the offspring will be born next year; the embryos hibernate inside the ♀ snake body.

‘Plas-dras’

In my opinion Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa/Grutto) is the most beautiful stilt of the meadows. Unfortunately their numbers decline every year. Here is a portrait of a ♂ in a flooded grassland (coined ‘plas-dras’ in Dutch). The photo was taken from a hide; many thanks again to Astrid Kant.

Mariapeel

One of the most beautiful landscapes in the neighbourhood were I live is the Mariapeel, an exploited bog area. The last peat was dug around 1975. In both photos the weather was used as a background setting. The first photo of the man-made fen lake was taken on March 11-th, a stormy day with heavy clouds and some sunshine in between. However at the end of the day the wind dropped and the clouds resolved rapidly, resulting in a few friendly white
cotton-wool shapes in the sky that are reflected by the water. On today’s photo friendly cauliflower-like clouds (cumulus) grew by local heating of the sun into some showers (cumulonimbus).
For both photos I applied a circular polarizing filter, for the latter photo I used an additional ND4 gradient filter to cover the sky and to emphasize the spotlight effect on the dead birch trunk.

Amplexus

Just as last year (see March 2008 on this blog) I tried to photograph blue-colored Moor Frogs (Rana arvalis/Heikikker) in their mating season. The blue color only last for a few days, perhaps even for one night. This time I was lucky to found an amplexus, i.e. the ♂ mounting the ♀ and gripping her firmly, at a small pool south of Eindhoven.

Love is in the air

Already in December 2008 I setup a well-camouflaged hide where I could lie unseen at the bank of a small lake. Today I could freeze some action that I hoped for.
The central female and male Gadwall (Anas strepera/Krakeend) were all the time very close to one another (after all it is Valentine today!). Both snap at the obtrusive drake that flies just in front of them (it is hard to tell from the photo but I think there is even body contact between the males). The leftmost drake is present on sufferance.

Earlier this morning a Mute Swan (Cygnus olor/Knobbelzwaan), catching the first sun rays, was floating by.

Frosty tussocks

After a cold night the sun rises above the “Bargerveen” in the south-east of Drenthe, near the German border. The pattern of tussocks, accentuated by frost and shadow, drew my attention during an early morning walk together with my dad.