Admitted, they are attractive, decorative and delicious, these huge round ‘Old Amsterdam’ cheeses, piled up in the window display, in yellow and black. And great to take home as a gift after a vacation in the Netherlands too! The old Amsterdam houses reflecting in the shop window and the everywhere present bicycles add to the ‘typical Holland’ atmosphere…
Bekijk mijn parallel blog in het NEDERLANDS
Another beautiful bird, photographed in Pairi Daiza, a marvellous themed zoo in Brugelette, Belgium
This red, blue and yellow parrot, the Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao), is native to humid evergreen forests of tropical South America. It has suffered from local extinction through habitat destruction and capture for the parrot trade, but locally it remains fairly common. This colourful parrot is on the IUCN list of threatened species, status: Least concern (source: Wikipedia)
Bekijk mijn parallel blog in het NEDERLANDS
This Snowy Owl was photographed in Pairi Daiza zoo, a marvellous themed zoo on the grounds of a previous abbey in Brugelette, Belgium.
The Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) is a large owl, typically found in the northern circumpolar region, where it makes its summer home north of latitude 60 degrees north. However, it is a particularly nomadic bird, and because population fluctuations in its prey species can force it to relocate, it has been known to breed at more southerly latitudes. (source: Wikipedia )
My photoreportage about the commemoration of the 1992 Bijlmer Disaster was placed and made the front page at Demotix yesterday:
Commemoration bijlmer disaster, oct 4, 1992 – Amsterdam.
Please check it out!
In my second week of the “30 days”-challenge, I focused on squares and rhombuses. – Here’s my week 2 overview
For week 3, the focus will be on “Circles and curved lines”
You can follow my daily attempts to explore these shapes on my Dutch Blog or on Flickr :SHAPES ~Steppeland
The blogs or Flickr photo streams/sets of my fellow participants in this challenge, you can find here (hover over the names to see their themes):
celticfrogreviews , kimbomac , sgatanstu, akhenatenor, KatDanson , justjess1974 , CraigMc , Dimfja aka Bruce UC4SP , Secretatlantis , Ercolano , LunaStone , Lmorrow57 , meaghan900 , Kenght , darynthe , MadamMtnLion
At the moment, I am participating in a challenge at Worth1000 to make and upload 1 picture a day.
My theme is “Shapes”, and in week one, I was focussing on “Rectangles”
I tried to approach this theme in an eclectic way, and to find an as varied as possible collection of subjects, matching the ‘rectangles’ shape.
So here is my first week’s collection (+1 extra):
For week 2, the focus will be on “Squares and rhombuses”
You can follow my daily attempts to explore these shapes on my Dutch Blog or on Flickr :SHAPES ~Steppeland
The blogs or Flickr photo streams/sets of my fellow participants in this challenge, you can find here (hover over the names to see their themes):
celticfrogreviews , kimbomac , sgatanstu, akhenatenor, KatDanson , justjess1974 , CraigMc , Dimfja aka Bruce UC4SP , Secretatlantis , Ercolano , LunaStone , Lmorrow57 , meaghan900 , Kenght , darynthe , MadamMtnLion
At the moment, I am participating in a challenge at Worth1000 to make and upload 1 picture a day.
My theme is “Shapes”, and we’re in week one, where I am focussing on “Rectangles” – You can follow my attempts on my Dutch Blog or on Flickr :SHAPES ~Steppeland
The blogs or Flickr photostreams/sets of my fellow participants in this challenge, you can find here:
celticfrogreviews , kimbomac , sgatanstu, akhenatenor, KatDanson , justjess1974 , CraigMc , Dimfja aka Bruce UC4SP , Secretatlantis , Ercolano , LunaStone , Lmorrow57 , meaghan900 , Kenght , darynthe , MadamMtnLion
It had been a long time that I didn’t visit the ReedCorner (de Riethoek) , a small nature area surrounded by the highly populated neighbourhoods of Amsterdam SouthEast (The Netherlands) – But on Easter Sunday, although the sun was hiding behind the clouds again, I thought it was time to have a walk… and I definitely wasn’t disappointed.
I enjoyed seeing and photographing several water birds, of which some were already nesting – and lots of little flowering herbs… the first messengers that spring truly is on its way! 🙂
This Eurasian Coot clearly is already breeding… soon we’ll be able to see her ugly but eccentric young scavenging the sides of our ditches and ponds, and mom will have her hands full keeping an eye on them… For now, she still can enjoy the quiet for a little while… 🙂
Did you already see any nesting birds in your neighbourhood?
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
“The Victoria Crowned Pigeon, Goura victoria, is a large, bluish-grey pigeon with elegant blue lace-like crests, maroon breast and red iris. The bird may be easily recognized by the unique white tips on its crests.
It is distributed in the lowland and swamp forests of northern New Guinea and surrounding islands. Its diet consists mainly of fruits, figs, seeds and invertebrates. The female usually lays a single white egg.
Due to continuing habitat loss, being tame and easily hunted for its plumes and meat, the Victoria Crowned Pigeon is evaluated as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. ” (Source: Wikipedia)
It’s a beautiful bird indeed –
Due to the light reflection, the normally red eye turned partially purple here… amazing…
And this is the black-and-white version…
Discovering Beauty 