All is well

Meadow with a well near the Strabrechtse Heide on an ordinary December morning.

* Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17-40mm/f4 @ 17mm; ISO-200, f16, 1/4s; +1 stop; ND2 hard gradient filter; tripod.

Starling spectacle II

I couldn’t resist to go back to the Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris/Spreeuw). Just another end of the day, another murmuration …

* Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 70-200mm/f2.8 @ 70mm; ISO-800, f3.5, 1/320s; +0.7 stop; tripod.

Starling spectacle I

I’ve never seen such a large Starling (Sturnus vulgaris/Spreeuw) gathering in my life until today. These birds have the strange habit to stop feeding about an hour before sunset, and to fly to a common sleeping place (usually a reed bed or group of trees). They fly back and forth for about half an hour and make fantasy figures in the sky, especially when a bird of prey is present. The English also call this phenomenon very appropriate “black snow”.

* Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 70-200mm/f2.8 @ 100mm; ISO-800, f4.5, 1/250s; +0.7 stop; tripod.
* Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 70-200mm/f2.8 @ 170mm; ISO-400, f4, 1/250s; +0.7 stop; tripod.

Fungus on fungus

The forest floor is full of surprises: Bonnet Mould (Spinellus fusiger/Knopschimmel) growing on Yellow Stammed Mycene (Mycena epipterigya/Graskleefsteelmycena).

* Canon EOS 7D, 100mm/f2.8; ISO-400, f4, 1/30s; beanbag; -0.3 stop.

Beach Dunlin

IJmuiden aan Zee in the morning. You have to get up early (it is 1.5 hour by car!), but it is always rewarding. It is a very nice place, I feel at home here. In the corner of your eyes you see huge coloured container ships enter the North Sea. There are many wooden restaurants along the coast where they serve good coffee, and last but not least at this time of the year there are often sandpipers along the beach. They stop off here during migrating to feed. This morning I encountered a group of very tame juvenile Dunlins (Calidris alpina/Bonte Strandloper); the adults are already further south. The youngsters are probably more relaxed and less in a hurry :-).

* Canon EOS 7D, 500mm/f4; ISO-400, f5.6, 1/2500s; beanbag; +0.3 stop.

Tombstone owl

Barn Owl (Tyto alba) on tombstone, the scene reminded me of the mythical Harry Potter movies. I am very happy with this one!!

* Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 70-200mm/f2.8 @ 150mm; ISO-1600, f4, 1/60s; tripod; 3 LED torches.

Strabrechtse Heide

For the month of August I decided to do some serious landscape photography and especially to keep an eye on the local moorland “Strabrechtse Heide”. I admit the summer period is not ideal for nature photography. First of all, you have to set the alarm clock at an unreasonable idiot time (I am not a morning person). Secondly, the quality of light is often not as good as in winter times. The sun rises quickly to a high elevation. But on the other hand, since I have been a teacher I have plenty of time in the summer holiday and often the warm weather causes thunderstorms at the end of the day. So the plan was to focus on heavy weather and the flowering heath. Here is a small selection of the results.

• Photo 1 – August 3^rd: I saw this monstrous shower coming. Thanks to mobile technology with a rain radar app. I was just on time on the right spot to photograph this shelf cloud.
• Photo 2 – August 5^th: A traditional heath-with-fog wide-angle shot.
• Photo 3 – August 17^th: This place on the Strabrechtse Heide was new for me. When I first visited the spot a week earlier I immediately sensed its potential. I wanted flowering heath on the sand with heavy clouds full of rain above it. I took me a couple of return visits before I encountered the right circumstances.

The latter photo was also selected by the Roots nature magazine on their Facebook account as one of best flowering heath photos of this year.

* Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17-40mm/f4 @ 17mm; ISO-50, f16, 1.6s; ND2 hard gradient filter; tripod.
* Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17-40mm/f4 @ 17mm; ISO-50, f16, 0.5s; ND2 hard gradient + ND3 hard gradient filter; tripod.
* Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17-40mm/f4 @ 20mm; ISO-50, f18, 2s; +0.7 stop; flash, ND3 hard gradient filter; tripod.