It was 7:00 in the morning, and my alarm goes off; time to get up for work! As I lay in my bed, still somewhat dazed, I suddenly heard some ticking just outside my window. I peeked through my window shutters and was rather surprised to be staring right in the face of a young Jackdaw!
When I came back from the shower about 20 minutes later, it was still there! I opened the shutters and said to the bird "So, what do you want ?". All I got back was a little "caw"-like sound. The bird jumped onto the handle of my window and sat there watching me.
It was a rather awkward, but awesome way to start my day.
During one of my Sunday hikes, I ran across a caterpillar that was rather large and hairy. A bit of investigation told me that it was a caterpillar for a gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar).
It was about 6cm long.. I'm sure glad that it didn't drop in my neck; brrrr!
On a thin strip of land that divides the Maas and Waal rivers, there is a small nature reserve called "de Hogewaard". It's a couple of ponds with swans and geese and some whitebred shorthorn cattle roams the grassy bit.
It's a nice and calm place and I like going there. There's a road nearby, but you don't hear it; and the boats in the Maas river don't make much sound either. But above all, it's not a mainstream area, so you really have some space for yourself. It's a real good place for relaxation and (of course) enjoying a nice cup of hot chocolate.
As i said in a previous post, there would be another open house day at dairy farms in my area. I decided to go to another farm, which was even closer by than the last one. Most of the big cows were already outside, but fortunately they had a lot of calves which are even cooler.
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A little bit down the road there was a strawberry farm that also opened its doors to visitors for the occasion. I took a quick peek there, and enjoyed some free snacks and drinks.
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Next open house for the dairy farms is on June 13th... on which I will visit yet another farm.
The Dutch dairy producer Campina organized an open house event at some of the farms where they get their milk from. I'm always interested in how stuff works, so I decided to check it out.
It was quite crowded, but it was fun. They had some little stands where you could try some yoghurt drinks, milks and puddings, there were some girls that were handing out free products to the visitors; which is always nice. I also took the opportunity to shoot some stills of the beautiful women that work at the farm
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All in all it was a nice event. I got some nice photos, I've got some free dairy products and it kept me busy. On April 25th, there's another open house session which I will attend as well.
Nature is cruel, but very awesome. While my family was enjoying nature in the form of a nice cup of tea and oatmeal cookies, suddenly a sparrow hawk landed on a fence post in the backyard to enjoy it's lunch: a freshly caught blackbird.
I rushed towards my camera bag and took some snapshots from the bedroom window. Since the sparrow hawk didn't seem to mind that my dad and me were hanging out the bedroom window with big zoom lenses, I decided to sneak into the backyard for some close-up shots.
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I managed to get within about 1 meter of the bird. At first it seemed that the sparrow hawk couldn't be bothered with my presence, and continued to nibble on the blackbird. After a while it had enough of me and flew off with the carcass still in its talons.
The Sympetrum vulgatum, or the Vagrant darter, as it's known to the public. I caught this big boy on a bird feeding platform in my parents' backyard. Fortunately, I had my point-and-shoot camera at hand to capture a nice image of it. I'm surprised how it seemed to ignore me and just sat still.
While driving to the supermarket, I came across this little pond with water lilies. This posed the perfect opportunity to give my new Sony Cyber-shot a proper baptism. After a tiny bit of tweaking on the brightness and contrast in Lightroom, the picture came out quite nice I think.
One of the things that I have in common with my mother, is that we both like donkeys a lot. So when my mom read in the newspaper that there was open house at a donkey shelter in the town of Baarle-Hertog, she immediately told me about it. I teamed up with my parents to check it out.
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The shelter currently houses 29 donkeys that were either neglected, abused or just very, very old. I think it's good that there are places like these that help the animals that were hurt by the beasts (read: humans).
Being unemployed sucks, but it also has some nice benefits. For example, I can take nice hikes through the woods and the nature reserves now. The sun was shining, I was bored.. time to shoot some photos!
