May I introduce: Squik Jr. The weather on Tuesday was terrible. It had been below 20 degrees at night, but during the day the thermometer shot up to 30 degrees Celcius. The Kogel is in the shade, but also right under the roof. In the evening the little one came out and hung on our awning, very exhausted. A pot of water and a piece of cold watermelon from the coolest part of our fridge and some wallnuts helped a little. Mama Squink kept watch and ran excitedly back and forth while the offspring couldn’t keep its eyes open. I hope itsurvives this summer.
I only had an hour, but luckily I was already close to the forest. My senses were not deceiving me and I was near a small hidden clearing in the forest where there are a few water holes – no bigger than garden ponds – that I had discovered last year in autumn. The sun was already low and the fresh, green grass at the edge shone magnificently.
There was a Mandarin duck swimming in one of the lakes and something bright in the water next to it, which at first I thought was a thick birch branch. Looking through the telephoto, I saw that the branch had two strange, very symmetrical little cantilevers…. Wait, those look like bird legs an the feathers fit to a female mandarin duck! And indeed the male seemed to be guarding her.
It turned out that there were two males, but it was the one that kept coming back and was occasionally chased away by the other one. I have no idea what really happened here; probably a case for the bird CSI…. but the light was great and even dead water birds look elegant.
A field cricket! You hear them, but you rarely see them, as they tend to hear you first and stop making the chrirping sound when you get near. For me they are the messengers of summer and sun. This fellow was crossing the street on which I was riding my bike and was kind of stunned when I parked sprawled on the ground a few meters away. After it got it self together it turned quickly and rand away from me, but I was quicker and so we spent a couple of minutes till I finally managed to get it heating in the right direction with best lighting. A new step for me as well: I knew that getting on eye level with you subject results in better and intimate pictures, but I barely did – here I had the chance. New lesson learned… you need to get dirty to get better pictures. …and yes, I do need a macro lens for sure.
We fell in love, right the first time we went to the Netherlands about 20 years ago. The people unpretentious and just great, the landscape is nordic flat though changeable and along all those white sandy beaches on the southern part… I guess we will have to get there when we retire. For autumn of 2021 we did not go to the beach, but to Everstoot with its absolutely stunning natural park Mariapeel nearby. The wind beaten rustic trees, tall grass and spectacular weather… Mariapeel is a pearl and I will have to come back. Those images were all shot with my than new iPhone 12 and a little processed in Lightroom and now scaled up with Topaz Gigapixel, although apple does something right with its settings. Pictures out of the camera look really good. At this time I was tired of carrying my big DSLR and also did not post much on my blog. But now they are here…
After two years of absence we finally managed to return to an old habit to spent New Year’s Eve in the Netherlands, together with friends. Today went for a nice little walk along the beach and were observed by this little seal. Guess he just wanted to wish you all a happy and delightful new year – so do I. Happy new year!
Weather was totaly changing the whole day. Sun, thunderstorms and heavy wind. Never the less I took my chances and took my bike and cam and went out. Scenery didn’t let me down and good old sun shad some dramatic lighting over this evil willowtree.
Living in the city, you normaly don’t see much of the horizon. Whenever I am at the sea, that very horizon shows me, where my position in this cosmos is, how unimportant our whole race is and how small and stupid we all are… here it is the mighty horizon reaching over a sea of grain. Just a few minutes after that shot, we had a nice shower from above.
Poppy flowers all over the place. You can see them out on the fields and almost on evrey photoblog that has some nature pictures in its arsenal – here is mine. A little bit crumpled, but hey, at least its got all its leaves on.
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