New Year, new hike, good old dunes with the X-T3 and 100-400mm
Full screen gallery below
A new year, new promises? I don’t know, but what I do know is that the first two weekends of this year really had some nice weather. Meaning sun finally, some clouds, no rain (yes!) and good light. For me the perfect opportunity to get my camera and start shooting again, because that was quite a while ago. This blog and the second one (see the next one) are all about me getting back to the dunes, just for fun, no expectations.
It started off with a grey morning, but with the promise it would get better. At least that was what the forecast told me and boy was that forecast wrong many times before in the last weeks. I don’t know if its the stay at home situation, the pandemic overall or if the weather was just this grey and dull these past few weeks. Even more so than I can remember from previous years.
However as the morning progressed I started to see some sun rays and after an hour the sun really took over the sky and the light just poured into the house. That was the sign I needed to go outside. Gone was the playstation controller and the bag was packed! Man this sort of light was epic, especially after the grey dull days.
My mission was to find birds in the dunes, no deer, no foxes this time. Birds! Especially the bearded reedling (baardmannetje - panurus biarmicus). That was high on my list, but let me give you a spoiler - I didn’t get it, didn’t even see or heard it. I can’t seem to get my luck with this bird. Hopefully the time I do get it, it will be epic!
The hike started out quite easy across the hardened trails in the dunes and after half an hour I switched to the gravel and the dunes hiking through the grass and sand ending up at the waterside of a small pond (don’t know what the correct English term is for a pond in the dunes). Anyway, some nice, but not so interesting waterbirds where there and the reeds where I would -not- find the bearded reedling.
Exploring the surroundings a bit it started to rain very so slightly and an birch tree stood out, just where the last sunrays hit the waterside and the tree itself. A nice photo, but nothing special. As I turned around I saw a the great spotted woodpecker (Grote bonte specht - Dendrocopos major) up high in a dead tree, cool! At the same time a buzzard (buizerd - Buteo buteo) landed near me on top of some bushes to dry off the wet feathers from the light rain earlier. A nice piece of luck all together at once, no bearded reedling though.
That was the highlight but not after just spotting a redwing (koperwiek - Turdus iliacus) also in the same area as the rest. So a final treat and a sign to get back to the car as sunset was nog far away. Walking back to the car I saw a new area within the dunes I really never had seen before, guess it pays off just to wander off sometimes. The result was a nice sunset landscape photo.
All in all really nice to be out, nothing special, but good to be photographing again. Who knows, maybe next time I will get my bearded reedling…..
For now the photos! And don’t hesitate to leave a comment or an e-mail. All photos are taken with the Fujifilm X-T3 and the Fujinon 100-400mm. Click to view larger in a light box and navigate with mouse or arrow keys. Enjoy!
