Nature Archieven

I regularly receive questions from readers about animals that have been seen, usually to help identify the species. For example, I recently got two qu...

Carnivorous plants are often depicted in a cartoonish way as bloodthirsty stems with a head with dangerous teeth on top. However, reality looks differ...

The dragonfly season starts mid-April. With slender damsels to sturdy, heavily built dragons. What is the difference between the two? My latest blog i...

In the winter period the chance that you see a butterfly is very small. Probably one will pop up once the warm winter sun shines and the temperature i...

This time we shine the spotlight on one of the prettiest (in my opinion) and most graceful (that too is personal) birds of prey of the Netherlands: th...

This time a short blog about a beautiful phenomenon that I encountered in February 2018. Strolling through the forest, my eyes fell on something ...

In recent weeks I have been out in the evenings regularly. Looking for females. With my wife’s approval, don’t worry. Armed with a decent ...

This time a somewhat longer story about a beautiful bird: the Montagu’s harrier (Circus pygargus). Towards the end of the last century this spe...

Last week I was strolling along the canal in my hometown, looking for butterflies, wasp spiders, bees and other insects. Countless grasshoppers jumped...

Upside-down T In my youth, a bird I would often see foraging in the fields when I was cycling to and from school, was the northern wheatear (Oena...

Green, brown, but blue? Ask the average Dutchman or woman what colour a frog has and the answer will most likely be “green”. Probably insp...

I hope my previous blog brought you a clear picture (how appropriate :-)) about how one bird can estimate distances very well while other birds hardly...

In my previous blog I wrote about the woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) and why this bird sometimes literally crash into buildings. Some readers wondered...

Spring is in the air, nature is ready for it. Great tits (Parus major) are doing their utmost and are singing like squeaky bicycle pumps and the ...

Spring is in the air. Although last weekend it was still snowing, you can sense that spring is coming. Perhaps a few night frosts, a bit of snow and t...

So, it’s winter. Birds leave the colder, northern parts of the continent and migrate southwards in the hope that there will still be enough food for...

One of the bird species that reside in the Netherlands during winter is the great grey shrike (Lanius excubitor). It is not a common winter guest...

When we had just moved to our current residence, I had a chat with our new neighbor Klaas. At a certain moment we got talking about nature and birds. ...