Birdpix V

Birdpix is one of the major bird photography websites in the Netherlands. Every day many great bird pictures are posted, which can be viewed by everybody. The best pictures of a year are printed in a book, the best of Birdpix. This year (the fifth book) I finally managed to make it to the book, with this picture of a female Red Phalarope in front of an iceberg. Tomorrow is the presentation of the book, I'm really curious what it looks like. For a preview and information how to order, see this page (in Dutch only, as is the book).

For old times sake

The Haaksbergerveen is a moor area close to the place where I grew up. During my secondary school period I went there several times a month, by bike and often with 2 friends, Bas and Jasper. At that time we were mainly interested in birds and the telescope was our most important tool. Things have changed since then. I moved to Groningen, the Haaksbergerveen is reorganized, my interest in birds has changed for one in dragonflies, bikes have been changed for cars and telescopes for camera's. But the friendship remains and the area is still good.

Today I was back and went with Bas and Geert to the Haaksbergerveen, in search for the rare Spearhead Bluet.

Last year I went to the same place and saw many strange damselflies. This year, they turend out to be Crescent and Spearhead Bluets. We saw quite a few this of both. In the beginning they were hard to photograph as they kept on flying. A little later they sun disappeared behind some clouds and the bluets were more willing to pose.

In the morning, before we went to the veen, we went to another small area where I saw the other target species of today, the Common Clubtail.

See this months gallery for more pictures.

Special dragonflies

Today I joined an excursion in search of the extremely rare Dark Bluet. In the morning, before the excursion started, we had a look in the neighborhood for other dragonflies. This worked out really well, finally I saw dragonflies in large numbers. As soon as we walked a little off the track, clouds of dragonflies took off, Four-spotted and Scarce Chasers, Downy Emeralds, and Green-eyed Hawkers were seen. This Scarce Chaser had bad luck and ended up in the web of a very happy spider. This must mean food for some time for him.

A little later Dolf found a just emerged Hairy Dragonfly. In this picture you can see he was still drying up. The drop of water at the end of its abdomen is one of the last drops he had to get rid of before he could fly away. I didn't see it emerge from its last larval stage, but this was a nice substitute.

But of course, the aim for this day was the Dark Bluet. An extremely rare species of dragonfly that lives in a very vulnerable habitat, one of the first stages of succession of bogs. There is only one known population in the Netherlands. Under supervision of one of the rangers we were allowed to visit the place. The nice thing about rare dragonflies is that they can be locally quite common. So with this species too. Once we arrived on the spot we saw many individuals, I think I've seen at least 40! Taking pictures wasn't too easy as they prefer to sit on straws in the water, and we were not allowed to enter the water. But with some luck one could find an individual (or in this case two) sitting on the dryer edges.

The end of a great day!

For more pictures: see this months gallery.

Finally!!

During the past weeks I heard many records of dragonflies and saw several really nice pictures. The weather was great, with sunshine and high temperatures. Only one problem for me, if I wasn't working I had to pack all my stuff in many boxes because I've just bought a new apartment. With now all my things moved to the new place (it's getting beautiful), I have some time again to go out.

Yesterday I spent the whole day in the Lauwersmeer. I saw several dragonflies, but they were too quick to be ID'd. So today I left the boxes unpacked again and had a look somewhat closer to home. During the last two years there have been Small Bluetails in an area in the city of Groningen, so I wanted to see if they were still around. And then, finally, there I saw my first real dragonflies of the season. Several Small Bluetails (both males like the one in the picture as orange coloured females), some Common Bluetails and a Broad-bodied Chaser.

Hopefully the weather stays like this for a while and do I manage to find some more time to go out. This was a good start at least.