Bert de Vries

@bertdevries.bsky.social

690 Followers 1305 Following

Born at 316 ppm. Father of two, grandfather of four. Philosopher of #science and #technology. Former treasurer of a #Viking silver hoard. Retired teacher. Dabbler in #paleoanthropology, #geology, #nature #photography. Love #hiking in the #Alps.

Two small (approximately 8 mm long), slightly elongated black insects with bright red patches on their shoulders and backs, sitting on different sides of a spiky green thistle stem.
White-tailed eagle with spreaded wings, hovering among the reeds, looking downwards for prey.
Snow-covered Japanese lantern and large boulder, in front of a high hornbeam hedge with dry, reddish brown leaves, also sprinkled with snow.
Comparison of the old White House and the proposed new extension.
Whitish spongy structure of about 10 by 8 cm across, lying on blades of grass.
White wallaby at dusk, foraging on a forest floor and munching away at something it's holding in its front paws, ears stretched in different directions.
Photographs of a piece of drill core from the Dutch Waddensea at a depth of 2200 meters, with micro photographs of mineral details.
Mootje ringslang tussen maaisel.
Fietspad met kale bermen, een rietkraag aan de rechterkant, bomenrijen aan de horizon.
Fietspad met kaalgemaaide bermen, rietkraag aan de rechterkant, bomenrij aan de horizon.
Somewhat rounded sand grain in metallic rainbow colours, surrounded by some other, dark and dull grains.
Minuscuul schelpje dat bestaat uit een aantal lobben met nog kleinere bultjes erop die lijken op 'kippenvel', in een schilferige kalksteen waarin fragmenten van andere fossielen zichtbaar zijn.
Tiny shell consisting of several lobes with even tinier 'goose bumps', embedded in somewhat flaky limestone with fragments of other fossils.
Ant hanging upside down from the bud of a Field thistle flower, stroking a group of aphids on the flower stem with its antennae.
Adult crane, mostly grey with white accents on shoulder and head and a dark red patch at the forehead, standing among last year's dried out dead reed stems, looking down on a fluffy rusty orange hatchling running by.
Two cranes, light grey with contrasting fluffy black tail (actually also the end of their wing feathers), black neck and face, and a red bonnet, standing on a small reed island in a marsh pond, arranging reeds and harvesting aquatic plants to build their nest.
Almost cloudless sunset on marshland.
Small, smooth skinned salamander, dark reddish brown with pale yellow underside, on a gravel path.
Head and a few body curves of an adder, with a striking black serrated pattern on its back, seen at an angle from behind, twisting towards the grassy verge of a concrete bicycle path, head tilted so it can keep an eye on the photographer.
Surrounded by the decaying remains of other specimens sits a somewhat irregularly shaped beige-orange mushroom with gills radiating towards the cap's undulating white fringe. There is a small fluffy ball of fungus below, and in the upper left corner, a tiny millipede scurries among the wrinkled dead mushroom bodies.
Waves of brown to purplish, white-edged shelf caps with a few bright green algae surfaces, stacked on a dead conifer tree.
Network of shiny yellow-orange veins with multiple blobs, spreading from the bark of a dead birch tree over the white tissue of a console mushroom's underside.
Granaatzand, goed gesorteerd, matig grof (ca. 220 - 230 micrometer), natuurlijk concentraat, Rinkeweelsdijk, Waddenkust Noordburen - Wieringen, 16-09-2006. Afgezet tijdens een aantal nagenoeg windstille dagen waarin bij hoogwater laag-energetische golfslag met kleine amplitude onder aan de dijk het zand uitspoelde en een band zware mineralen van soms meer dan een centimeter dik achterliet. Roze tot oranje zandkorrels: granaat, zwart: magnetiet en ilmeniet, groengeel: epidoot, kleurloos: kwarts. 'Garnet sand', well sorted, medium coarse (ca. 220 - 230 micrometer), natural concentrate, Rinkeweelsdijk, Waddensea coast at Noordburen on the former isle of Wieringen, the Netherlands, 16-09-2006. Deposited during a couple of almost windless days, on which at high tide low-energy, small amplitude waves washed out the sands near the foot of the dyke, leaving a layer of heavy minerals, at places more than a centimeter thick. Pink to orange sand grains: garnet, black: ilmenite and magnetite, yellow-green: epidote, colourless: quartz.
Stack of finely lobed, split-gilled mushrooms seen from below, rusty brown at the centre radiating to light beige at the caps' edges, with a clear white, undulating rim.
Two almost egg-shaped beige caps with stems barely visible in the lush green moss, and two pebble-like, still developing ones with no stems visible in front.
Two strikingly orange console mushrooms on grey birch bark with patches of green algae.
Console-type mushroom, at first sight similar to a Turkey tail, approximately semi-circle concentric structure, slightly hairy surface coloured in shades of green by algae, attached to a fallen birch branch.
Whitish mushroom tissue in many intricate folds radiating from a centre, from which also a small spinelike structure projects towards the bottom left (actually the vestigial stipe of the mushroom).
Mountain landscape with lush vegetation in the foreground, flowering alpenrose leaning against a rock, a pine tree somewhat further away, and snowcapped mountains under a hazy blue sky in the background. Romantic, still beautiful, but just visible in front of the mountain range are the remains of the Morteratsch glacier. The spot where this photograph was taken is approximately where the glacier ended 50 years ago when I first visited Val Morteratsch. Hence the hashtag "solastalgia".
In the foreground the shallows at low tide: a muddy marshland with interlocking tidal pools stretching towards the dark band of a dyke at the horizon. Directly above the dyke there are silhouettes of leafless trees, some houses and a small church, bathing in a hazy white light apparently originating from the right. The sky fades from this hazy white near the horizon towards dark blue high up in the heavens, where just a few fibres of feathery cloud are drifting by.
A semisphere of tiny blue-grey, slightly elongated balls reminiscent of blue grapes or blueberries, hanging from brown stalks that attach to a transparent slimy substrate that is mostly out of focus. In the dark background other groups of balls can faintly be seen.
Some light green moss branches on the dark wood of a dead tree, are covered in white, waxlike blobs that still faintly preserve the shape of the moss leaves.
More or less rounded patch of intertwined short veins with small spaces in between, pinkish, white and purple, with a distinct purple zone towards the edge, followed by a white fringe. Towards the bottom of the photograph a second thallus is partly visible, and on the left is the slightly curved brown scimitar-like shape of a pine needle, partly overgrown by the fungus.
Blue-green dome surrounded by a fringe of fluffy white mold like a fur collar. The mold also covers the surface of the dome, but less densely. Some small patches of white mold are attached to the front. It all sits on a substrate of light red-brown rotting wood.
A grey-green, powdery stalk of approximately 2 cm tall, forked at the top into several cups that are capped with a shiny red bonnet. In the foreground and background other lichens can be seen, slightly out of focus.
Cascade of shelf mushrooms, fan shaped, slightly wobbled surface coloured in zones ranging from dark brown close to the substrate they are growing on (a dead birch tree), through various shades of beige, to clear white at the edge. They are sharing their habitat with lush green mosses.
Several white, spiky and more or less globular fungal clumps.
Group of baroquely folded mushrooms, with a beige craquelure surface, but partly seen against the light from the underside, showing a translucent yellow to orange gilled structure radiating from a dark substrate of decaying wood.
Some black, shiny blobs in irregular but rounded shape, a bit like kneaded tar or dried plums, the largest about 3 cm in diameter, sitting on the light bark of a fallen birch tree.
Wriggly crust of light yellow to white fungus with larger vein-like structures running through it, turning into a fluffy, woolly white mould at the growth edge.
Ear-shaped lobe with a white fringe, and a clay-brown interior covered by irreguarly formed but somewhat rounded porous crusts of a bright grey colour.
A group of whitish mushrooms with elongated shaggy caps, as if their growth has ruptured the caps' tissue (which it probably has). In front of them lie some wet oak leaves, at their back is a large erratic boulder.
Roe buck seen from behind, but turning aside to the left, so its head with full-grown antlers is seen in profile, standing in the dry brown remains of last summer's tall grass, against a dappled green background of mosses and tufts of grass at the edge of a ploughed field.
Ivory white, slightly translucent mushrooms, huddled together in close-knit groups, sticking out of a dark beech trunk.
Part crust, part protruding irregular waves of mushroom body, brown with a white fringe, sitting on a rotting dark tree stump.
Portrait of a fierce looking bird of prey seen from the side, dappled rust-brown wing feathers, fluffy dappled beige collar, piercing black eye, grey beak with bright yellow lining. And the tail of a mouse sticking out - it took more than two minutes to finally swallow it...
Black, fused spheres composed of small interlocking facets, each with a tiny central pin. Looks a bit like a pineapple skin. On the whole, it looks like closely packed bunches of grapes. A fringe of moss is visible at the bottom.
A tangle of tiny, thin green leaves with some longer needle shaped, yellow to orange protrusions, bathing in sunlight that is refracted in melting small ice crystals from a nightly frost. Field of vision approximately 10x20 mm. Photograph taken in Drents-Friese Wold, the Netherlands.
Stack of light beige shelf mushrooms with elongated, almost dripstone-like undersides, showing an intricate labyrinthine structure.
A bunch of about 10 tiny, cup-shaped fleshy pink (rather than purple as the name suggests) mushrooms huddled together on the flat saw-cut surface of a rotting tree stump.
Detail of mushroom surface with round patches of white tissue with interconnecting rims of small beige brown dots, field of vision ca. 20x10 mm