Scarlet Darters

Last year I'd seen Scarlet Darters on a small grass field in the city of Groningen. Now I've moved, this field is at walking distance from my new home. A few weeks ago I had a look if they had returned already, but that search was in vein. This week I got a message that they were back, so I got my camera and had a look. Indeed, several males and females were seen again, however it was close to impossible to get good shots as there was too much wind. Today the wind had died down a little, so I went for another try.

The bright red coloured males we flying continuously and extremely shy, but the females were often a lot easier to approach. After a few side views (see below) I decided to try some different poses, like the one above.

I'm sure I'll have another look at them to see if I can make some nice shots of the red males as well, but for now I'm pleased with these results.

For more pictures, see this months gallery.

Semi-finals

This year I participated for the first time in the prestigious BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest. I didn't expect to win, but making it to the semi-finals would be a nice goal, in my opinion. Today I got the notification that two of my pictures made it to those semi finals. The Red Phalarope that I posted here and this Polar Bear. The latter was surprising to me, as it was one of the last pictures that I decided to sent. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) they didn't make it beyond those semi finals.

Now lets see what we can do next year!

Noctilucent clouds

Sometimes one can take nice pictures just from the balcony. Yesterday I got a message that rare noctulicent clouds could be seen over the Netherlands. These clouds can only be seen just after sunset of just before sunrise. So I had a look outside and there they were, luminescent clouds against a dark sky.

Noctilucent clouds are very high clouds, ca. 80km above the earths surface (against maximally 20km for normal clouds). Because they are so high, they can reflect the suns light a lot longer even after all other clouds don't receive any sunlight anymore. Three things are needed for noctilucent clouds: dust, e.g. from meteorites, water vapour and low temperatures. Because of the low temperatures, the water vapour forms a thin layer of ice around the dust particles (like frost on earth). This layer of ice now serves as a mirror to reflect the sunlight, and this is the light we see.

Picture is taken from a tripod with a 10 sec shutter speed. Because of the wind, the trees in the foreground are a little blurred. Not my best picture, but I still wanted to share it as I'd never seen this myself before.

Nature photography on Spitsbergen

Over the past 10 years, I've spent quite some time on Spitsbergen, first as a biologist, later as a expedition guide. During this time I learned a lot about the area and its potential for nature photographers. For the Dutch website Natuurfotoblog I wrote down these experiences in an article about nature photography on Spitsbergen. Not exactly a "where to take pictures on Spitsbergen-guide", but more an article that should start interest for people who want to go there. For more questions, one can always mail me of course. The article can be read here (in Dutch only, unfortunately), and more information can be found on my Spitsbergen website (in English, with also a part on nature photography).

Its a beautiful day

Today I joined Gert Veurink and Herman Bouman on a trip to Germany in search of some rare (in the Netherlands extinct) damselflies. First we visited a bog area in search for the extremely rare and hard to find Sedgeling. He lived up to his hard to find-image, as we couldn't find it, despite a really thorough search. But our disappointment wasn't too large, as we were amazed by all the other rare species that we saw in quite large numbers. The Large Heath (see above), Cranberry Bluet and Cranberry Fritillary are almost extinct in the Netherlands, but here we saw them a lot.

Also the Northern Emerald was quite abundant. Herman once heard some noise from the bog, it turned out to be a female depositing eggs in the bog. This is always really hard to photograph, as there were leaves everywhere and the emerald was flying up and down constantly.

A very unexpected sighting was this Green Snaketail. This dragonfly favours streams, so we were very surprised to find it in a bog area. But the seperated eyes and the green thorax excluded any other dragonfly. My first new dragonfly of the day!

After we spent several hours there, we decided to move on. There was more on the program! A little closer to the Netherlands we knew a place with both Mercury and Ornate Bluet. The first is extinct in the Netherlands and the second has never been there. Strangely enough these damselflies are found in small (preferably calcium-rich) streams, a habitat also found in the Netherlands. So I wouldn't be too surprised if they would show up somewhere in the Netherlands anytime soon. We found some Mercury Bluets in a tiny stream near a golf course. As it was already past 7pm, the sun was getting lower and it started to cool down a little. Because of this the damsels weren't flying too much anymore and posing nicely in front of the camera.

This was a great way to end an almost perfect day! And those Sedgelings? Ah well, now we have to return another time....

More pictures can be found in this months gallery.

Common ones

On my last couple of photography trips I went specifically out for a special, rare dragonfly. It is always a good feeling to be able to find a rare dragonfly and take a good picture of it. However, the common ones can also be very nice. Today I went out to a small field just a couple of hundred meters of my new home. Last year I saw Scarlet Dragonflies there, but I hadn't heard anything about them so far. When I came there, I immediately saw lots of Common Bluetails, one of the most common damselfly species in the Netherlands. I always like those delicate damselflies, no matter how common they are. It was already getting a bit colder, so they didn't fly away immediately anymore. Common Bluetails have many different colour morphs, here two pictures of the "normal" one.

When I was getting close to one male, I noticed some small brown things underneath its abdomen. There are different stories about these mites. Some say they are parasites and suck their food from the damselfly. Others say they are just hitching a ride as they are way too small to penetrate the armour of the damselflies. Looking at the size of these, I tend to go for the last explanation.

For more pictures, see this months gallery.

Failed targets

Another weekend in Eibergen, and some new dragonfly targets. This time I wanted to find emerging Beautiful Demoiselles and the extremely rare Northern Emerald. But things didn't really go as planned. First of all the weather wasn't really as predicted with only 15ºC and quite some wind. When we arrived at the stream, it was still quite early and cold. Last year I found several demoiselle excuviae, but now we couldn't find any. After a while Geert found one male Beautiful Demoiselle resting on top of some plants. Normally demoiselles always rest with their wings together, but this one sat with the wings spread out. I think he had just emerged, even though I couldn't find any excuviae. There was only little light, so it was quite hard to get good shots without any movement of the animal.

Our next stop was one of the few places with a population of Northern Emeralds in the Netherlands. With the sun a little bit higher in the sky (though still behind the clouds most of the time) the temperature rose a little and more dragonflies came out. Several Four-spotted Chasers and a few Northern White-faced Darters were seen, but no Northern Emeralds.... There was one path going through the area and we walked it up and down several times. We probably saw 2 emeralds flying, but they took of and were never found again. So another target failed.

Now we continued to a small stream in Eibergen where I'd seen Clubtails and Skimmers. I had little hope to find a Keeled Skimmer, but this was also in vein.

Fortunately the Common Bluetails came to the rescue. Even though the wind had also picked up, I managed to get some nice shots of one resting in some grass. So not the nice rare ones made the day, but one of the most common damselflies gave the best pictures.