Salthouse, England

Day-hunting Barn Owls (Tyto alba/Kerkuil) were the other goal of this short trip to the UK. Nigel Blake drove us around all day long in the Norfolk country side, checking all best-known places.
However, the typical English weather was a killjoy; rain and a fierce wind kept the owls from going out. Luckily we found some cooperative Teals (Anas crecca/Wintertaling) dabbling around in a pebble pool.

Donna Nook, England

The salt marsh of Donna Nook on the north-eastern coast of Lincolnshire is, besides a bombing range for the RAF, a seal watchers’ paradise. It boasts one of the largest and most accessible breeding colonies of Grey Seals (Halichoerus grypus/Grijze Zeehond) in the UK. Grey seals are Britain’s biggest land mammal – adult ♂♂ males are two metres in length and weigh in at a massive 300 kilograms, roughly the weight of two Sumo wrestlers.
When autumn turns into winter hundreds of Grey Seals start hauling themselves onto the sand banks. Together with Marijn Heuts, I spent two days in the Donna Nook Grey Seal colony. The bulls mostly laze around all day, sleeping, huffing and groaning and arguing with the other bulls, the adolescents are practicing their fighting skills in the surf, and a few ♀♀ had already give birth to their pups.

Stay or go?

This morning I was in doubt what to do. Drive a long way to the coast and try to find a group of Waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus/Pestvogel)? There is a major invasion going on in The Netherlands. Or stay close to home and inspect a new feeding station? Since I hate the massive friday-afternoon traffic jams, I decided the latter. About 25 Tree Sparrows (Passer montanus/Ringmus) were already present on the spot. This beauty was willing to pose. I tried to get some autumn colors in the background.

Slimy stinky stuff

This Saturday I went with some like-minded members of the nature photography association Eindhoven (that I recently joined) to an old forest near Arnhem to look for toadstools. Despite the fact that the mushroom season is over the top I found some fresh ‘wanted’ species. Here are 2 of them:

• The well-known Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus/Grote Stinkzwam). The latin name needs no further explanation. This mushroom belongs to the fungal order Phallales and is known for its foul smelling sticky spore mass, or gleba, borne on the end of stalks called the receptaculum. The spore mass attracts flies to help disperse the spores. All species of the Phallaceae family begin their development as oval or round structures known as ‘devil eggs’.
• A yellowish slime mold, very aptly named Scrambled Egg Slime (Fuligo septica/Heksenboter). The literal translation of the Dutch name is “witch butter”, also well chosen. Formerly they were classified as fungi, but today they are no longer considered part of this kingdom.

Who's afraid of Yellow and Green?

The first bird that appeared this morning in front of a new hide was this Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea/Grote Gele Kwikstaart) in winter plumage. He (or she) walked straight to the spot where I wanted the bird to be, i.e., so that it was all surrounded by gold-tainted water (caused by the sunlit reed beds at the opposing shore).
After a couple of minutes it was scared off by a Green Sandpiper (Tringa ochropus/Witgatje), and flew away. Somewhat later a second Green Sandpiper appeared at the scene. Both birds stayed for more than 2 hours and I watched them washing, doing their feather care, feeding, and resting. Just before taking a bath they performed a very rapid zig-zag flight low over the water. Does anybody know the meaning of this strange behavior?
Green Sandpiper is very much a bird of freshwater, and is often found in sites too restricted for other waders, which tend to like a clear all-round view.

Mushroom variety

The summer of 2010 was very wet, but … it is an exceptional good year for mushrooms! Fungi species that have been thought to be extinct suddenly re-appear in the Dutch forests. Every drawback has its gain, to quote the well-known motto of Holland’s most famous football player, Johan Cruyff.
The large variety of shapes and colours keeps inspiring me. Here are some (rather common) toadstools that I found in one of my local forest patches, “Refelingse Heide” in Nuenen.

• Angel’s Bonnet (Mycena arcangeliana/Bundelmycena) – A tiny one, densely and disorderly stacked into a goblin pension.
• Pearly Webcap (Cortinarius alboviolaceus/Lila Gordijnzwam) – A fibrous gilled mushroom that I have never seen before.
• False Death Cap (Amanita citrina/Gele Knolamaniet) – The less familiar akin of the Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria/Vliegenzwam), see also my previous upload.

Psychedelic mushroom, or insecticide?

Thank God, not only that there are Fly Agarics (Amanita muscaria/Vliegenzwam), but also that they are very common. Every autumn these photogenic fungi can be found just ‘around the corner’. The light rain made the mosses appear fresh and vivid.
By the way, did you know that:

• The name of this mushroom in many European languages is thought to have been derived from the fact that it was used as an insecticide, when sprinkled in milk.
• Fly Agarics were used for its hallucinogenic properties (with its main psychoactive constituent being the compound muscimol) by the peoples of Siberia, and has a religious significance in these cultures.