Monthly Archives: June 2022

It did rain last night, as forecast, but the skies were mostly clear by morning, so out I went again. This time a female tufted duck was the first to greet me with a photo-op. I do see them around, from time to time, but I haven’t taken a picture of one since staying byContinue reading “Fun with Names!”

The clouds were pretty low and grey this morning but at least they weren’t leaking, so I rode out to the countryside to see what I could see, and I was soon greeted by this young great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) rustling up some breakfast in a birch tree that has seen better days. WithContinue reading “Weekend Waders”

Sorry about the pause, but I’ve moved into a new place again, I hope for the last time on this trip, and I don’t have to commute across the open fields between Rotterdam and Delft any more. Instead, I’ve now gotta decide to ride out there on purpose, ideally before work, and this was theContinue reading “Back in action after a brief Dutch Delay”

You may have noticed that I’ve been struggling a bit with little birds here. I think I’ve only shown you four so far, the chiffchaff, the sedge warbler, the reed bunting, and yesterday’s chaffinch. The first excuse that pops into my head is that they are less flashy than the ones back home. Think ofContinue reading “Delightful Dutch Weekend Overflow.”

It was another beautiful morning in South Holland, so I hopped on my bike and headed into the countryside again. My first new find is this striking common chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) finally posing perfectly after it made me chase it from perch to perch for a while. I read that chaffinch is “literally “chaff-finch,” so calledContinue reading “Another Dutch Day of Sunshine”

The planets aligned, and it was a nice sunny morning, for a change, and I had nothing else I had to do since the building in which I work is locked for the whole weekend, by policy, and I hear people need special permission to gain access. I could go to the library instead, butContinue reading “More Dutch Details…”

It’s a rainy Sunday afternoon in South Holland, and I’m in the library at TU Delft for the wifi and the comfortable working conditions. Despite the gloomy weather, I saw some fun scenes on my bike ride up from Rotterdam. I was just riding a long and saw a big white bird land in theContinue reading “Another new bird and some new sights.”

It’s a rainy Saturday morning in Rotterdam, and I’m taking a break from bicycle riding to recover a bit from the recent big uptick in my daily mileage, so no new pictures today. Instead, here are some new sights from my ride back to Rotterdam from Delft yesterday evening. First, I came across this pheasantContinue reading “Time to get caught up…”

I’m starting to get quite a backlog of little birds that I still need to identify, but in the meantime, it was a beautiful morning to ride across the Dutch countryside, and I caught some interesting scenes of birds we’ve already seen. First, I finally found a mute swan with cygnets, and these ones sureContinue reading “Dutch countryside action scenes!”

I’ve had to work this week, if you can believe it, and so I haven’t gotten to go looking for wildlife. On the commute, however, from Rotterdam, where my boss and his wife are graciously putting me up until I can find my own place, to Delft, where we work, I was seeing some amazingContinue reading “Scenes from the Dutch countryside.”