End of 2024: Feathers and furs

Another year gone by, with plenty to show for it. Hard to imagine that at the start of this year I could still barely walk from my broken leg, and now I'm hobbling around as if it never happened (sort of). As the year has drawn to a close, I've collected a bunch of images in two blogs, this one for birds, mammals (and an amphibian) and another for all manner of creepy crawlies. I've thrown in some landscape shots for impressions of where these pics were taken as I had them anyways and they wouldn't see the light of day otherwise. All these images were taken in the Netherlands, photos from my trips to Belgium and France got their own blogs. November was spent in Thailand, which will get their blogs in due time, for now a blog with mostly pictures and a few memories.

The year started with a couple pictures, but mostly with birding and sitting out winter waiting for spring, as I usually do. While looking for redpolls on the Dutch Veluwe, I had by far my best sighting of the year however. While wandering about on the drizzly gray morning in early february, I noticed an animal on the bike path, the wind was in our faces, so we noticed it before it noticed us. It took a second with my wet glasses and the mist caused by the drizzle, but after a brief look through the binoculars, I realised I was eye to eye with a wolf. Holy. Shit. My camera was in my bag due to the rain, and of course the second I put my bag down to grab it, the wolf looked up and ran into the woods. No picture, but who can complain with such a sighting? We spent some time hiking in the direction it walked, seeing something moving in the distance but unable to make a certain ID. Filled with adrenaline from the sighting we continued walking, eventually ending up in a heather field in the general direction the wolf headed. Some bikes passed us and then out of the forest edge the wolf (presumably the same individual) popped out. Having learnt from my mistakes I had my camera out and fired of a series of shots. The wolf approached us some way, then turned into the field and at a leisurely jog passed through the heather into the woods on the other side. Filled with adrenaline I checked the camera, and I had a couple sharp shots despite the horrid light. Two days later I had another surgery, with a far worse result than predicted, but at least I had this sighting to keep me happy until I could walk again, sometime in april...

April rolled around eventually and a couple good sightings were had, notably I spent some time with some eared grebes (Podiceps nigricollis) and found my first ever spadefoot toad (Pelobates fuscus) which I had longed to see for a long time, sadly only a subadult, but that leaves something to look for next year.

In May I spent quite a lot of time trying to photograph wood warblers (Phylloscopus sibilatrix) and after a few individuals I stumbled upon a very cooperative one one morning. I rarely have a photography project in this sense, but finally getting the desired shot was very rewarding. Another cool bird presented itself in the form of a cooperative Icterine warbler (Hippolais icterina) after plenty of uncooperative individuals.

May and june also had plenty of mammals, including some adorable fox cubs. Not really the images I was after, but I didn't want to cause any disturbance. 

Summer provided even more lovely evenings with plenty of shots, which I'll mostly let speak for themselves. My favorites are of the grebe with the stunning morning light. No autumn shots of birds or mammals as I had very limited time, something for next year :).