Snowphotography: Grey Heron in Bijlmerweide


NL. Deze blog post in het Nederlands

I’m sure I wasn’t the only photographer out there with my camera this Monday, right after the first snowfall of the year… We haven’t had such a thick layer of snow in years, and it resulted in fantastic images! In my local area: Bijlmerweide in Amsterdam Zuidoost, I was able to photograph this grey heron—first from a distance, in the landscape near the water, in the falling snow. Later, he gradually came closer.

After watching me from a distance for a while, and then, to my surprise, walking straight towards me, it finally swerved and circled me with a stately, purposeful stride.

There it stood still again, watching me intently… so close now, and so relaxed, that I could easily get a close-up with the telephoto zoom…

A special experience: being stalked by a heron. Only much later did I realize that, because of the plastic bag around my camera, he probably thought he was going to be fed… So, begging heron! 😀 Too bad for him: I didn’t have any food with me either. But I did get a nice series of photos!

And the heron? … once he was truly convinced I had nothing to offer him, he took to the wing and slowly winged away, looking for a snack a little further away!

Tiny beauty


Tiny beauty

Last Saturday, we had our monthly workday with the Bijlmerweide volunteers. For me an occasion to, afterwards, still pass by the three little experimental grasslands, where we are making an inventory of the wildflowers growing there. Although from a distance, the grasslands still look very ‘barren’, there were already quite some early spring flowers to be found… Only, one has to bend deep to find them 😉 – This little beauty, klimopereprijs (Veronica hederifolia), was found and photographed on grassland 1 – and also found on grassland 2 and 3. March 17, 2012