Picturing Paris

February 21, 2012 by admin | Leave a comment

Paris: no matter how many times one has visited this city – there’s always something interesting to see. Our strategy usually is to just walk out of the hotel and head for some goal (or not) by foot. Along the way we usually encounter unexpected views, non-heard of museums, friendly coffee places etc. Last weekend our three days in Paris were well-spent !

Posted in Travel Tales Tagged Cities, City, Hans Overduin, Homeless, Parijs, Paris |

Smew

February 16, 2012 by admin | Leave a comment

Yesterday for some reason the battery of my car broke down, i.e I couldn’t start the engine anymore. While waiting for the repair service to show up, I suddenly noticed this sub-adult Smew in the water close to where I was.. Luckily I had my camera with me and though the weather was dark and rainy I spent my time taking some pictures of this little fella’ !

Posted in Birding in Holland, Personal Tales Tagged birding, Hans Overduin, Nonnetje, Smew |

Rape, not plunder

February 14, 2012 by admin | 1 Comment

I am not sure whether it’s illegal to publish pictures of actual rape on the internet, but here we go. This happened just one hour ago in front of my house… Aggressive little creatures ! Light was bad, so the images lack some technical quality – but they do have some emotion IMHO !

Posted in Birding in Holland Tagged Coot, Hans Overduin, Meerkoet |

Bearded Beauties and the lonesome Woodcock

February 11, 2012 by admin | Leave a comment

Frozen ponds and lakes means that areas are accessible that you normally can’t visit. This morning I went to such a place. Some 15 Bearded Reedlings (Baarmannen) showed themselves excellent when approached from the ice. They weren’t shy at all, I guess feeding seems to be more important than safety for many birds at this moment. They made for some good shooting opportunities ! I am more than satisfied with the result. All shots are taken with the 500mm + 1,4x extender @ 700mm. It is that I had no place to safely store the converter – but I could easily have taken it of and still get frame filling birds ! Later on I found an extremely shy Woodcock, as you can tell from the picture …. A perfect day !

Posted in Birding in Holland Tagged Baardman, Baardmannetje, Bearded Reedling, Common Woodcock, Hans Overduin, Hout |

Mirror Moments

February 9, 2012 by admin | Leave a comment

The last couple of days I spent some time at a creek where some of the water wasn’t frozen. Two advantages: it attracts birds in search for food and it gives some nice mirroring effects as a bonus. Here you see some examples – in the previous blogs you can see more of the species that I encountered !

Posted in Birding in Holland Tagged Bonte Strandloper, Common Snipe, Dunlin, Green Sandpiper, Hans Overduin, Mirror, Waters, Witgat |

Happy Birthday to me….

February 7, 2012 by admin | Leave a comment

Today I have my birthday: so early morning at minus 12 degrees Celcius I went back to the spot I visited yesterday afternoon. Though slightly less birds, I was able to make another amount of shots. The birds came very close, as long as I laid totally motionless on the ground. Also I spotted a Woodcock (Houtsnip) for the first time in my life ! A cold, but sunny day. I feel I got many birds as a present today

Posted in Birding in Holland, Personal Tales Tagged Bok, Common Sn, Common Teal, Common Woodcock, Green Sandpiper, Houtsnip, Jack, Water Rail, Waterra, Watersnip, Wintert, Witgat |

Bad Luck and lessons learned….and more

February 6, 2012 by admin | Leave a comment

After missing all the winter photo opportunities last week due to work abroad and an additional 24 hour delay in getting home thanks to our national airline KLM, this morning I ventured out for a quick shooting tour. First thing I found was a dead Jack Snipe… Fortunately I also found one that was alive and could take plenty of shots. After rushing home I quickly loaded them into my computer – and deleted my CF-card. And after that all pictures were gone… ?!?! I still do not know what triggered this or what I did wrong – the result was nevertheless the same. For the first time I had seen a Jack Snipe and then: all pictures gone.. A friend of mine (Olof) provided me with a software program that saved some of the images from my memory card, although not all came out in RAW… At least I have some evidence left and learned a lessons: as from now I will never delete pictures from my memory card before making sure they are all well stored on my Mac. Still.. how the hell did this happen ???

Anyway, later this day I went to another spot and was able to shoot more birds as you can see: Water Rail, Common Snip, Green Sandpiper and more ) This time I was more careful while uploading them on my Mac !

Posted in Birding in Holland, Personal Tales Tagged Bokje, Common Snipe, Green Sandpiper, Hans Overduin, Jack Snipe, Wassenaar, Water Rail, Waterral, Watersnip, Witgat |

Raptors in Flevoland

January 18, 2012 by admin | Leave a comment

Last monday I visited a housewarming party of company in Almere (Tropicare – www.tropicare.eu). Since this is close to one of my favorite raptor spots I decided to leave one hour earlier. In this way I could check upon the raptors and at same time avoid getting stuck in the evening rush hour on the highway. The Hen Harriers and Rough-Legged Buzzards were around, but not that active. Just upon leaving I spotted a female Kestrel that was willing to pose for some shots

. After some ten minutes of cleaning itself, it decided ‘enough is enhough’ and took of….

Posted in Birding in Holland Tagged Birding in Flevoland, Blauwe Kiekendief, Buizerd, Common Buzzard, Hans Overduin, Hen Harrier, Kestrel, Tore |

A long day in Zeeland

January 16, 2012 by admin | Leave a comment

Yesterday Menno and I left early for a long day of birding in the Province of Zeeland. Although many species on our wish list hid themselves for us, I ended up with three new species (Grey Partridge, Red-necked Grebe and Iceland Gull) for my NL-list. We found some Snowbuntings that we could photograph, as well as some Black-Legged Kittiwakes…. All in all a good day, even considering a 12 hour and 525km long journey…..

Posted in Birding in Holland Tagged Birding Zeeland, Drieteenmeeuw, Grey Partridge, Hans Overduin, Kittiwake, Patrijs, Sneeuwgors, Snowbunting |

Marrakech

January 11, 2012 by admin | Leave a comment

We started our cycling trip in Morocco in Marrakech – a city with a buzz. Staying in a traditional Riad within the Medina we could discover the city on foot. Day or night: there’s always something going on. Being a first-timer for us everything is exotic and exciting !

Posted in Travel Tales Tagged Cycling in Morocco, Fietsen in Marokko, Hans Overduin, Marrakech |

Hans Overduin Photography