Its been a while, photography in winter this time wasn’t really on my mind. Except the one time on the beach when it was really a good frosty morning. The last few days saw some awesome early spring weather with sunshine and high temperatures. So why not go visit the dunes and see what birds there are this time around.

I think the cover photo already spoiled it. My first real wildlife encounter was with foxes in the dunes. This was before I got the birding virus. The curiosity, daring and cunning behaviour of foxes always attracted me to get them photographed within their habitat as naturally as possible. This was a challenge years ago, but doable in the dunes. However lately they are more scarce. Mainly due to the more people that are photographing them, even feeding them (which is now prohibited), but I think they are hiding further and further away in the dunes as it became more and more crowed after 2020 with people.

To be honest I never really took notice of Texel for birding until I heard several podcasts and checked sightings on Texel and it seems (duh) that it's absolute heaven for migrating birds from and towards Scandinavia. So That needed to be checked out and boy I was in for a treat. I have never seen/spotted (the difference I will explain later) so many birds. Still it was quite a challenge to get proper photos as some birds were really far away.

Meijendel is the largest contiguous dune area in South Holland. The beautiful nature reserve stretches between Scheveningen, The Hague and Wassenaar. The nature reserve consists of a predominantly open dune landscape, water features, forests and miles of sandy beach.

Due to a podcast about birding I was pointed to this specific location and others as well. I have not yet been here or photographed at this location. It’s situated below Rotterdam. It’s a dune area with where fresh water meets the sea. Especially in winter, the salt water flows through channels and creeks far into the area. The low parts of Kwade Hoek are always damp. Sea buckthorns are found in the drier areas. In short a very interesting area for birds. Take a look here, kwadehoek.

Now already a few weeks ago but this was the best last day of autumn. The sun was strong and you felt the last sunny days and warmth of the season. This made that there was also a lot to see and photograph. I think a saw the most birds species in this short time frame ever in the dunes. I was there for maybe 4-5 hours, so I guess I was lucky!

Back to chronologic order to my photography. I was in the dunes at the start of October in full on autumn, however with the weather back then and still is, it was so warm it felt like summer. It was a wonderful day, with temperatures around 18-20gr Celsius. Walking in the sun it was really warm, quite weird actually. My goal was to film the deer in meeting season. In the end I was unlucky, but still got some really cool photos.

Talking about procrastination I’ve been putting off photography for a while now. Don’t know why, just not into it or not taking the time to plan trips. It’s not the end of the world, but if you love what you do, you need to make time. My time is now taken by cycling and training. Maybe I will do something with both, photography and cycling - two birds in one stone.

Nothing much to add really other then it was a really nice and sunny day, warm even. The sun blasted over the dunes. However a few hours later the clouds came rolling in and the grey weather was taking over. Still some nice photos to take with me after a 3 hour hike.