Damselflies and Chasers

I have been trying for years to take quality pictures of these creatures when we were living in France, and never succeeded over there. Our son now lives in Halsteren, and near their house is a pond teeming with damselflies and schasers. All the above pictures are from there.
From top down:
Blue damselfly-  azuur waterjuffer
Red damselfly- vuur waterjuffer
Scarce blue damselfly-  lantaarntje
Blue damselflies at work- azuur waterjuffers bezig met hun nageslacht.
Detail of "blue damselflies at work"
Broad bodied chaser- platbuik libelle, korenbout.

My Sigma 105mm macro lens came in handy! I hope to publish some more close up insects some time soon.

Birds of the Western Scheldt

The Western Scheldt is being talked about. Antwerp wants bigger ships to be able to come to their port and therefore some sandbars had to be dredged. To compensate for this loss of habitat (?) for wildlife, an agreement between Belgium and the Netherlands has been made to flood the Hedwige polder, a very sore point in our province. The main issue is birdlife. This does not pretend to be a scientific point of view, merely a 60 year observation: I have never seen the water as clean as it is today, the birdlife is more abundant then I can remember. The obvious change that I notice is the abundance of Japanese oysters. Their shells are everywhere. Some birds that I managed to catch on digital film:

Top picture: Bergeend, Shelduck, Taranto Taranto

Middle picture: Scholekster, Oystercatcher, Heamatopus Ostralegus.

Bottom picture: Steenloper, Ruddy Turnstone, Arenaria Interpres

Tentoonstelling Ut Fotocollectief Hulst

Dijken: Daar zijn er nog al wat van in oostelijk Zeeuws Vlaanderen, de voormalige Hulster en Axeler ambachten.

De Cisterciënzer monniken van Cambron-Casteau hadden  zich al  in 1223 te Stoppeldijk gevestigd. Zij vingen aan met de inpoldering van grote gebieden in de omgeving van het Hellegat.  Veel van hun werk werd vernield tijdens de tachtigjarige oorlog toen dijken doorgestoken werden om een waterlinie te creëren, om in de daarop volgende eeuwen  weer hersteld te worden. 

Het merendeel van de binnendijken hebben geen echte functie meer, maar dragen nu bij aan de schoonheid van ons Zeeuws Vlaamse landschap. De functionele- en moderne dijken liggen nu langs de Westerschelde.

Oost Zeeuws Vlaanderen is een ondergewaardeerd wandel en fiets gebied met prachtige landschappen, ruimte en rust.

Ut Fotocollectief, bestaande uit een aantal enthousiaste fotografen uit deze streek, tracht een sfeerbeeld te schetsen van dit relatief onbekende stukje Nederland.

De tentoonstelling van  zwart / wit  foto’s met als onderwerp “Dijk”,  vindt plaats van 8-22 Juni in het “s’Landshuis”  (de voormalige zetel van het Hulster ambacht)  in de Steenstraat in het centrum van Hulst. (VVV kantoor)

Maandag t/m vrijdag 10.00 uur tot 12.30 uur en 13.00 uur tot 17.00 uur, dinsdag gesloten. Zaterdag 10.00 uur tot 12.30 uur en 13.00 uur tot 17.00 uur, zondag van 14.00 uur tot 16.30 uur. Toegang gratis.

Working horses

Some 10 kms from our house in the polders of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen lives a family of typical  "Zeeuwse" workhorses. They are massive and in the old days they were used to plough, pull carts etc. Nowadays they are hobby animals. I visit them regularly to monitor the progress of the foal. It's a colt, a male foal.

 

Easter 2012

Easter is cold! After a rather warm beginning of spring, egg searching has to be done with a coat on.

The "hidden" eggs were quickly found.

Winterwonderland

We are experiencing the coldest spell of the last 15 years. In the north of the Netherlands they are going crazy over the Elfstedentocht (eleven cities tour) a scating event of over 200km long with an estimated 16000 competetors. The last tour was in 1997. Hopefully it will happen this year. The ice has to be a minimum of 15cm thick. Meanwhile this weather creates winterwonderlands:

This picture has been taken close to our house, as you can see, virgin ice. Still too dangerous.

Photography 2

The club, Utfotocollectief, has decided we are going to make an exhibition about characteristic dikes in our part of the world: Zeeuws Vlaanderen. For uniformity all members will have to produce 4 to 6 black and white photos. The exhibition will take place in June in Hulst.
Some of the pictures of mine for consideration:

Comments appreciated!

Oman

Over Christmas and New year we visited our son and his family in Muscat, Oman.   One of the highlights was certainly a visit to the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. A marvel of engineering and Islamic art.

The mosque has a capacity of up to 20.000 believers.
The (hdr) picture is from inside the main prayer hall.

Photography

Recently I have been accepted in a small photo club: "Ut Fotocollectief" , from Hulst. Only a handful of enthousiasts, guided by a professional photographer, are aiming to make an annual exposition on a theme connected with the part of the Netherlands where all members live, Oost Zeeuws Vlaanderen.
We are still discussing: will it be dikes, water or walls. The photo's have to be taken in our small part of the world. A first attempt by me:



Big fish

Especially for Ton Pekel: Yesterday one of the largest containerships in the world passed the Western Scheldt: MSC Taranto, a ulcs (ultra large container ship) of 366 m long by 51 meters wide.

Ton: some more pictures on : http://www.flickr.com/photos/lescatalpas

Ship photography

Since we left France I have been looking for something interesting to take pictures of. It used to be flowers, butterflies and other bugs. Things that our garden here in Holland does not offer as abundantly as overthere. But, we live just a few hundred meters from the Western Scheldt. This is the busy river connecting the Northsea to Antwerp, Belgium. I have taken to making pictures of containerships. With modern technology from www.marinetraffic.com I can see the ships coming on the computer, and when it is an interesting one I go to the river.
Some examples:

Bad weather

Last night we had a freak thunderstorm passing our town. Hailstones the size of marbles and 30-40mm of rain.  Many people had their cars turned into golfballs. The garden was a mess. Most leaves are shredded and flowers have been demolished.

More Cormorants

Apparently these birds are quite successfull around here. They are known to eat 500 gr. of fish per day. This means these 6 guys eat over a ton of fish per year. No need to buy a fishing rod....

Cormorant

This Cormorant is trying to dry his / her wings in the rain. Pfff....... What a lousy summer, we  miss France..., or at least the weather in France

(click the picture for large version)

House move

As from today we own a new house in Terneuzen, The Netherlands. It's a rather modern house compared to our previous house in France. In the above picture it's the second house from the left.

Not too many butterflies overhere, but we have cormorants right in front of our doorstep. More pictures of these shy birds are to follow

The French adventure.

The French adventure is drawing to a close. Mainly because of family circumstances we have decided to move back to the Netherlands. The house has been sold, a new house has been bought.
We are now entering a very busy period of packing, moving and unpacking, so there will be little time for blogging. Once settled in Terneuzen, the town where we bought another house, we will update our followers.
Meanwhile we are enjoying the very early spring, with all it's splendor. Les Catalpas is always at it's best this time of year.

Smelly business

On thursday the 20th of January we had our sceptic tanks cleaned. As our access road is so small we had to use a local farmer with rather small equipment.
The sceptic tank of the main house......

........and the sceptic tank of the gîte.

Enough space now for at least 4 years going to the toilet.

Cat and Mouse

Miepje, the daughter of our stray cat Minoes, is growing up to become a real hunter. The mouse and Miepje were having a good conversation....................

until the mouse offended Miepje. Needless to say somebody lost out.....

Walnut country

Another view from our garden. As you can see, we have our own viewing point, the only difference with the previous topic being that we are overlooking walnut orchards in stead of vineyards. Yesterday afternoon it was particularly nice with a very clear rainbow.

Wine country

View over the Lot valley from Bélaye

My brother and his wife joined us for new year's eve and the first week of January. A good time for some sightseeing and going to the Lot valley to buy the famous Cahors wine, Malbec as it should be. We usually go to Chateau Latuc, run by a Belgian family. Very much recommended.
Their (pricey) white wines, which are very unusual in the Cahors area, are comparable with good Burgundys.
The picture is from Bélaye, a superb viewing point.