Cute and creepy crawlies – Discovering Beauty

Diverse moths captured: biodiversity in action

31-05-2025 Ilperveld – Waterland, North-Holland – NL

Moth count

Two weeks ago we were able to participate for the first time in a Moth count led by Nico Dekker, Coordinator Butterfly Working Group (Vlinderwerkgroep) KNNV – Ilperveld, Landsmeer at Visitors Centre Landscape North Holland.
What a special experience!
Behind the visitors centre of the Ilperveld a white cloth measuring several metres was stretched, which was illuminated by a very strong, vibrating lamp. It was switched on as soon as it started to get dark, around 22:30, and immediately the first insects appeared: moths, but also beetles, flies, mosquitoes, and a lot of other small fry… Within no time there were hundreds of them. Quite a ticklish feeling!

Inventory and identification

A few people from the Butterfly Foundation and some other interested parties had quickly positioned themselves around the cloth, and took turns in an attempt to photograph and/or identify as many of these creepy crawlies as possible.

Nico had an insect book with him to identify the various species, and here and there we were shown some beautiful species and given names. Apart from that I was mainly dependent on taking photos – in the hope that they would be good enough to have them identified later via Observation.org.

Photographing insects in the dark

Taking photos in the dark turned out to be even more complicated than expected. Everything moved, flew, hopped, crawled and hopped around, in such large numbers that you didn’t know where to look first, let alone how and where to focus. In addition, the flickering lamp appeared to project red horizontal lines on the canvas, which were not visible to the naked eye, but were visible in the photos.
All photos were therefore significantly lightened in post-processing, sharpened and noise-free, and where possible the background was cleaned up a bit.

After sorting through hundreds of photos, and with a bit of luck and a lot of fiddling, you are moving from this :

To this:

**Valeriaandwergspanner**
**Eupithecia valerianata**

Variation and biodiversity

It is unbelievable how many different species we saw that night! I was able to identify and name a total of 71 different species using Waarneming.nl. But there were many more. Beautiful creatures with often equally surprising and poetic names. The ‘top pieces’ of the evening for me were undoubtedly the Ermine Moth and the Rhinoceros Beetle. But certainly also some other gems that you can see below in my personal ‘top 10’. You can soon find a number of others on my website Photodeck Steppeland – Moth Count (work in progress…)

Would you like to participate yourself?

By participating in such a moth- or insect- count you will learn much more about the biodiversity and ecology of a certain area. That is certainly worth experiencing.
Want to know more? Check the agendas of some local or national nature working groups. Some interesting links:
https://www.vlinderstichting.nl/
https://www.landschapnoordholland.nl/
https://www.natuurmonumenten.nl/

My personal Top 10

Mating Long Jawed spiders

NL. Deze blogpost in het Nederlands

During our walk in Nature reserve the ‘Riethoek’ (Reedcorner, Amsterdam Zuidoost), looking for small creepy crawlies for our ‘1000 species year’ project, we were just focusing on a Long Jawed Spider when this happened:

Looking back on 2021 – Steppe’s favourites

Deze pagina in het Nederlands

2021 was another very active photography year for me. The corona pandemic still had the whole world in its grip and also in the Netherlands we painfully moved from one lockdown or semi-lockdown period to the next, with some little breathing spaces in between. At times our freedom of movement was quite limited and social contacts were also only sparsely allowed. Reason enough for my sister Agnes and me to often seek each other’s company and to go out with the camera very regularly: luckily nature reserves within the Netherlands were always freely accessible, so we made ample use of that to visit beautiful places and go explore.

Early January, therefore, is the right time to look back on this year of photography and make a selection of my best photographs. This year the emphasis was very much on nature photography, while street or social photography – partly due to the circumstances – came off poorly. Following is a presentation of my own favourite photos this year. Not necessarily technically perfect photos, but images that tell a story, capture a unique moment or pass on a special experience.

These images you can also view in gallery style on my Photodeck website: click here

Birds

My own top-favourite photo this year was one from the ‘Reed bunting in the blizzard’ series. A special image that accurately reflects the harsh conditions for small birds and the need to survive in winter weather.
Flying birds were certainly a favourite this year as well. Perhaps this was the first year in which I really managed to get some good pictures of it, more than ‘just by accident’. But birds also remain a challenge in the water or on the ground, and it is exciting and exciting to portray them properly. The black-tailed godwits (and other meadow birds) on Marken, the spoonbills on Terschelling, the grebes in North Holland and Zeeland, the swans on the Veluwemeer, the ostrich in Artis and the greenfinches in the dunes of Egmond aan Zee… we enjoyed them all!

**Not a moment to lose.**
Snow storm, wind chill -11 degrees C., wind force 7, code red: no weather to go outside, so anyway! Swinging on the reeds, this reed bunting continues to diligently peck seeds.
Much needed food to stay alive…
Amsterdam Southeast, NLAmsterdam Southeast, NL.m Zuidoost, NL.

**‘Bonte Pieten’ in flight.**
A group of oystercatchers flies overhead, their black and white plumage and orange beaks, eyes and feet stand out against the blue sky. It’s not surprising that they are also called ‘Bonte Pieten’ in Dutch (‘Colourful Petes’). Photo was taken at the floodplains of the IJssel after high water.
Deventer, Overijssel, Netherlands

**A flight of curlews.**
A large group of curlews flying overhead.
Photo was taken at the floodplains of the IJssel shortly after high water.
Deventer, Overijssel, The Netherlands.

**The free flight of the Wigeons.**
A group of wigeons fly over right above our heads and look down on us, babbling.
Marken, North-Holland, Netherlands.

**Riot among the black-tailed godwits.**
Group of black-tailed godwits on the flooded meadow.
Marken, North-Holland, Netherlands.

**A varied company.**
Black-tailed godwit, three-toed sandpipers and a pair of teal, a varied company.
Marken, North-Holland, Netherlands.

**Two black-tailed godwits reflection.**
Two black-tailed godwits by a puddle on the flooded meadow.
Marken, North Holland, Netherlands.

The black-tailed godwits and the hare
Two black-tailed godwits by a ditch and between them, dead silent and almost invisible, a hare on his bed.
I only saw it properly when I developed the photo at home
Marken, North Holland, Netherlands.

**Foraging together.**
Four spoonbills looking for food in the shallow water of the Wadden Sea.
Terschelling, Friesland, Netherlands.

**On one foot.**
Meadow pipit with one foot up, on a fence pole in the dunes.
Oosterend, Terschelling, Friesland, Netherlands.

**Touching tenderness.**
The dance of the mute swans, couple and partners for life.
Veluwemeer, Biddinghuizen, Flevoland, Netherlands.

**Love – partners for life.**
The dance of the mute swans, couple and partners for life. Veluwemeer, Biddinghuizen, Flevoland, The Netherlands.

**Take my present.**
The male offers nesting material to the female. When this is accepted, the couple can start building their nest. Pair of grebes during the beautiful display of courtship.
Schardam, North-Holland, Netherlands.

**Nostalgic grebe family picture.**
A grebe family on the water. Two little ones on mommy’s back.
One little one rushes back to Daddy, who has a tasty snack.
Catharinapolder Terneuzen, Zeeland, Netherlands

**Curious ostrich.**
This ostrich in Artis found the long telephoto lens interesting and came to take a look.
A moment later he snapped at it.
Artis Amsterdam, Netherlands.

**Meeting on top of the willow bush.**
Group of greenflies gather on the top of a willow bush.
North-Holland Dune Reserve. Egmond aan Zee, North-Holland, Netherlands.

Trees

Another theme that came up very often in my photography this past year was trees. Trees in the landscape or in small detail. This was partly due to the fact that at the beginning of 2021 we (Agnes and I) had completed the personal coaching traject, which we followed for most of 2020. As a final assignment, we had to submit a series of 8 photos. I chose the theme ‘Trees in weather and winter’ and decided to make a diptych for each tree of one wide photo (landscape) and one close-up or macro photo. I will show the result of this photography project in another blog post. However, due to the choice of the formula of a diptych per tree, some trees, of which I only had a wide shot, fell out. Others were made in another season and didn’t fit the winter theme at all. Some of my favourite tree photos are therefore given a place here.