Saturday 21 August 2010

Silly walks

Juvenile Greenshank (Tringa nebularia/Groenpootruiter) chasing small fish around sunset. It was fun to watch this; the ‘silly walks’ on long stilts reminded me of John Cleese in his role of chaotic hotel owner in the TV-series “Fawlty Towers”. What a unsurpassed humour, it’s an indelible part of my education.
Vague in the background there is a group of noisy adolescent Lapwings (Vanellus vanellus/Kievit).

Saturday 14 August 2010

Zipper web

This morning circumstances for taking pictures of dew-covered insects or other invertebrates were perfect (if you find them :-). After a heavy late-afternoon shower yesterday, the sky cleared up, and with almost no wind the temperature dropped overnight to slightly below 10°C. In early morning I went to my local patch, and pretty soon I found this Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi/Tijgerspin); this dangerous looking tiger lady was waiting immobilized for better times to come. I place the characteristic white zig-zag right line of her web right in the middle, like a big zipper running from top to bottom.

Wednesday 4 August 2010

Hogwarts marsh

The above photo was taken half an hour after sunset at the “Mosbulten”. Every summer the water level in this restored marshland (‘compensation nature’ for the A50 highway between Eindhoven and Nijmegen) drops, creating alternate patches of land and water.
It was pretty scary alone in this marshland with the fast upcoming fog, the set in of darkness, and a calling Little Owl (Athena noctua/Steenuil) in the distance. I looked around carefully, but I did not see Harry Potter or one of his fellow wizards.