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9 mei 2013

Al ritorno da Italia!

3 februari 2013

Nauwelijks is de sneeuw gesmolten of de crocussen, de sneeuwklokjes, de winterakonieten en de winterjasmijn staan in volle bloei.

en dit is pas op 18 april, dus 2,5 maand later dan de crocussen!

20 december 2012

Already for 3 month by now Zorro is alone in the Jufferswaard, the wetlands in front of our home. It's funny to see that always when he is "having dinner", he lets me come close. As if he has no time to be disturbed. Yet he is disturbed, makes some noise, takes a little distance and come back again to the waterplant and/or roots he is harvesting. He loves the roots and young sprouts of the cat's tail.

9 november 2012

About 4 weeks ago all the swans of the Jufferswaard along the river Rhine have flown away except the Black swan. Apparently he behaves more territorial than the Mute swans that have gone with their young ones. The Mute swans will come back for sure and probably will accept once again to live in a trio together with the Black swan next year. Maybe, as they always did so far, they 'll return already this winter when it's soft enough.

9 september 2012

In the Jufferswaard in Renkum the swan trio and their 5 bastards are still together, but soon the young hybrid swans will fly out. They exercise flying already.

6 juni 2012

"My" dear swan trio has 5 chicks on the Rhine border nearby. Those 5 are probably hybrids. We observe the male Mute swan being more distant from the chicks than the female Mute swan and her Black swan partner.

6 Mei 2012
Zorro defends fiercely the territorium of the swan-trio. The Black swan hardly had left his hatching turn to his Mute Swan partner, and he charged on a "foreign" couple of Mute swans that had entered their wetland lake.

First he has "frozen" de female swan by standing on her head (see picture). Looks rather humiliating, one could say.
Then after a few charges flying over the lake and charging trough the brushwood on its borders, the male Mute swan had left to a securely distant place.
Impressive to see how symbolic this battle takes form.
But where was the third partner of the trio, the male Mute swan? Or is there not more than a mixed couple left?

30 April 2012

The (black and white) swan trio in the Rhine wetlands near Renkum have a nest together for the 2nd year. At least 1 egg is in the nest by now. More will come as the nest is brand new. I have seen both the black swan and a mute swan hatching.

22 April 2012

A dead goose. I found it right on the place where our grand-children love to play: on their little "beach" where the Heelsumse Beek flows in the Rhine.
Its left leg is completely broken, just connected by some skin. It drifted to this place from the river for sure. Probably this goose was killed by a spinning screw of a Rhine barge.

11 march 2012

What a surprise during our Pieterpad trekking to spot a hybrid black-mute swan in an ordinary village pond at Groesbeek near Nijmegen.
This must be the type of hybrid from a black father and a mute swan mother. It has the shape of a mute swan and (nearly) the colour of a black swan. The other type (form a black mother) gives a much lighter grey hybrid with a more narrow neck etc, hence looking more like a (nearly) white black swan.
I didn't see any ring on its legs.

4 february 2012

Today all the Dutch are caught by their typical madness: skating on frozen natural waters. All along the river wetlands and spread over the lakes and canals fathers are desperately looking for a parking place for their cars (there is no special infrastructure along these rarely visited places) while their kids have already run as fast as possible to some place to put their skates. Parents and grandparents are in that typical mood of enjoying this special gift of nature: skating on natural ice under a bright shining sun. Youngsters are having fun with each other and some may be a bit flabbergasted as many of them haven't got this experience vey often yet. It's not every year we have this in Holland.
In Renkum and many other villages some pasture plot has been arranged to be flooded in order to get it frozen .. in case... let's hope ...there is a serious frost period like now. Its seems last night was the coldest in Holland since 27 years. It was just below -20*C.

24 januari 2012

Today I have seen for the first time near our house in the Rhine river, this Common Golden Eye (Brilduiker, Bucephala clangula). I have seen him (this is a male one) a few times before e.g. in the Oostvaardersplassen in Flevoland. This species has its hatching area in Northern Russia and Scandinavia.
That is so interesting in this period of the year: all kinds of birds are migrating and also going about in the Dutch river and coast areas in particular. So you can observe rare guest near our home.

The flooding of the river, beginning this month, was quite significant, but short. After a week or so the water dropped rather suddenly down to normal nearly. But today I saw it is rising again slowly. It has been raining quite a lot the last weeks in the German area, where the Rhine comes from.

9 januari 2012

Today is prbably the last day for a while that we can walk to "our" Noordberg and Jufferswaard across the road in front of our house. We had to jump over the stream crossing the summer dike at its lowest point. Marten got one wet foot. The Rhine and the affluent Heelsumse beek are so flooded now we have to look for an alternative daily walkout. That's no problem as behind our house starts the Veluwe, a massive and hilly forest area. So we 'll keep dry feet. Don 't worry.

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