Kor Bosch

@korbosch.bsky.social

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Wildlife & history

Page 121 of "All the Birds of the World", showing various species of nightjars. There's 10 individual species on the page in all, but most striking is the fact that two of them, with a body otherwise comparable to the rest, have extraordinarily long tails - in fact that of the lyre-tailed nightjar can be three times its body length and consequently the tail cuts across half the page!
Photograph from a fifth floor window showing the Nieuwe Haven of Arnhem at the front and the Rhine / Nederrijn running behind it. At the water's edge the sandy river bed is exposed, followed by a line of rocks, followed by the grassy soil of a peninsula that is often host to friendly cows* *Friendly cows may have been involved in storming the Westervoort bridge once
A white-tailed eagle in flight. It is a huge mostly brownish bird (with some lighter flecks) with a large yellow bill and talons. One of its legs is ringed, although the number couldn't be made out on the photographs. The tail feathers are white fringed with brown, which indicates this bird is not yet an adult (which have fully white tails) but more likely a third calendar year juvenile. The bird has a particularly stern expression.
A red-backed shrike sitting on a bare, thorny branch. It has a brownish red back, a grey cap and a black stripe running over its eyes, with a white chin below it. It has a fairly long tail which it was constantly wagging up and down like a wagtail, as well as sideways, which was quite amusing to see. The tail is mostly black with a white fringe.
A common swift in flight. A dark, sickle shaped bird. It appears to have an enormous round chin, but that's actually its crop. which it's filling up to feed its young.
A juvenile blackbird on a fence. Juvenile blackbirds are various shades of brown, with more light brown elements than female blackbirds have. There is also still some yellow at the base of the bird's bill.
A white stork - a large bird with long red legs, a red bill, and white plumage apart from the border of its wings, white are black - on top of a lamp post. The bird is leaning slightly forward so it can look down.
A canal with a beaver swimming in it. On the other side of the canal a row of houses can be seen.
Two oystercatchers in a field of yellow flowers, standing side by side with their side in my direction and their heads facing sideways, to my left. They have a white belly and chest and a black head, neck, back and wings (mostly). Their bills are long, pointy and red, and the juvenile has a dark while the adult's eye is bright red with a black pupil. Their reddish legs are obscured by the flower bed.
The garden warbler bites into a drupelet from a blackberry to pull it off.
A garden warbler, perhaps the most little brown bird of all the little brown birds, holds aloft in its beak a round drupelet pulled off a blackberry as it flaps its wings. Its feet grip on to a stem and an unripe blackberry, its tail rests on a leaf. This bird has virtually no identifiable features - it is brownish, its legs and bill are dark but not black, its underside is a little lighter than the top but noremarkably so, it has no eye stripe and only a subsdued eye ring. Nevertheless, it is incredible to see it in action.
A hedgehog beside the shed in my garden, approaching a water bowl (which I refilled)
Pop van een huismoeder (nachtvlinder)
A honey buzzard in flight. It is superficially similar to a regular buzzard in shape, with a longer head and neck with an almost pigeon-like head with cartoonish dark yellow eyes with black pupils. Its underside is more stripey than a regular buzzard's, its tail a little longer
A red squirrel mid-jump as it hops through the grass, with a long, bushy tail and fluffy ears.
A whimbrel - a wading bird with long legs and a long bill. It is similar to the curlew, but a little smaller and with a shorter bill that's less curved.
Crude cartoonish drawing of an ibis with clubs for hands knocking another on the head
Technically unrelated but I felt I needed to add a bird image, and what better than this one of a black guillemot throwing its catch of a crab in the air? The book taught me most birds alive today, belonging to the neognaths infraclass (which includes the black guillemot seen here), share a more mobile palate, which has turned their beak into a much more effective tool.
Book cover of "The story of birds" by Steve Brusatte
A grasshopper warbler singing from the top of a dead bush. It produces a grasshopper-like sound, which explains the name.
Een geoorde fuut baby op de rug van de ouder
Two wrens are locked in combat. The left bird is with its head on the ground, its tail pointing up, whereas it's the opposite (more logical way around) for the other bird. Both are aggressively flapping their wings, try to peck at their opponent's lower half and defend against this happening to them with their claws. They perfectly balance each other out, making it difficult for either to break free.
A common whitethroat sits in the top of a plant. It has a fluffy white throat that stands out like a beard and a dark grey cap, but most remarkable is is its eye: a black pupil in a reddish brown iris, surrounded by a white eye ring, which makes it really stand out. It has a buff breast which slowly fades into a white belly, and a brown back. The bird is singing.
All the baby geese have been herded together into a group. One Canada goose has a beak full of hare hairs and shows this to another goose, who is demonstratively looking away.
Two very angry Canada geese chase after a hare, wings flapping and screaming at it, while the other two Canada geese (only one of which is visible) herd together their young in a defensive formation. The hare tries to run off into the vegetation
Een biddende buizerd, met hangende kop, staart en poten. De staart is gespreid.
A fairly large warbler in a willow tree, yellowish from its chin to the underside of its tail, brownish on its back, tail and cap. Its bill also stand out, which is strong and more orange than usual. The bird sits on a branch and looks around. The Dutch name spotvogel translates to "mocking bird", as this bird, too, is exceptionally good at imitating the calls of other birds. It can easily confuse Merlin with imitations of oystercatchers for instance, but incorporates them into its varied tapestry of sounds that also include what seem to be imitations of a squeaky duck.
A fence with two great spotted woodpeckers on it. An adult male bird sits on top, flapping his wings and shouting at the juvenile bird, who is dangling down the side and looking up at their parent.
A massive wall of rain moving from right to left, so solid it is hard to see anything through it. It obscures the view of the Nieuwe Haven in Arnhem as seen from the Westervoortsedijk
A Eurasian jay sits on a branch and looks up to the left, its beak open. It is a warm brown colour with a black moustache and a black-and-white striped cap. Its wings are multiple colours, with black and white striping but most notable of all, an individually unique combination of bright blue bars alternated with black lines. The bird's eyes have a light iris with a large black pupil.
A peculiar backlit bird is flying in front of the canopy of a tree. It has a white belly with black stripes and a grey breast and head with large yellow eyes with a yellow eye ring. The bird is angled in flight, so we cannot see her back, which is also grey. The underside of her tail has two distinct appearances: her undertail coverts are white with black stripes, while her proper tail feathers are black with sparse white spots. Because the sun shines through her wings they appear white, but they are actually greyish, with some additional white and black striping. The wings are spread out fully and the tail is fanned out.
A small bird with a stripey belly sits atop a line of ruined bricks, on top of the concrete roof of a bunker.
A turtledove seen from below as it's flapping its way up, its wings relatively close to its body. Its purpleish breast is visible, as is one of its orange eyes with a black pupil.
The same middle spotted woodpecker nest from the previous image - but now the adult woodpecker has retreated into the shadows, its head still outlined against a blue background, while a juvenile middle spotted woodpecker is peeking cheerfully out of the nest while calling for food.
A middle spotted woodpecker rests against a tree, the bird itself and the part of the tree it sits at perfectly lit. The bird has a bright red cap, a white face and a black stripe running from below its cheek down to its breast. It has a black back with some white stripes and spots. Its belly and chest have thin black stripes running across otherwise white plumage that turns increasingly orange and eventually red as it reaches the tip of the bird's tail. The bird, seen in profile, has a black pupil set in a dark red iris. It has four toes on its dark feet. A hole is visible next to the adult bird. The background on the left is mostly black - the dark canopy and trees - with some blue spots, where the sky breaks through the foliage. The right side of the tree is also cast in shadow, almost black. I underexposed a little to create the dramatic effect, which isolates the bird in the image and gives more texture to its darker parts.
An adult raven sitting high up in a treetop. It is looking over its shoulder. It looks much more powerful, with a sturdier bill and thicker plumage.
A young raven sits on a bare branch, its beak open as it must be pretty hot. Its bill is already impressive but its "beard" and the feathers covering the top half of his bill are still small. The corner of its mouth is pink. Its eye is not yet fully black, as with adult ravens, but has a clear pupil. All in all it looks a bit scrawny.
A greylag goose honking from the roof of my neighbours' house.
The same roller, photographed as it's looking over its shoulder.
A juvenile long-tailed tit. It already has a very long tail and looks much like an adult, except it has a much larger black eye mask and distinctive red eye rings.
A grey songbird with a black cap, a pointy bill and large, black eyes (a male blackcap) sits on a branch. Its head is turned sideways which makes it look like it's staring right at me, and while that's the impression you get, it is probably peering at the branch below it looking for insects.
Another painful face kick, this time with the kicking bird forced down fully onto his back and a small branch being upturned by the violence of the action. It looks painful but they were still going after five minutes! (:
View of two fighting wrens, small brown birds. We see one of the two wrens from behind, leaning back on the tips of his feathers, as he pushes his body upwards so that he can kick his opponent in the head. The wren receiving the kick recoils, his wings outspread as he tries to regain his balance.
Verkeersborden met boven een waarschuwingsbord en onder een geel bord met tekst "agressieve buizerd" met afbeelding van een slechtvalk
Two wrens grab on to each other tightly, their wings spread out and bellies pressed together. They are upside down, both their heads resting on the ground, their tails proudly pointing upwards. One of the birds has his eyes open and grabs onto his opponent's beak. The opponent has his eyes closed.
Two wrens fighting on the ground. They are both small brown birds with a clearly visible eyebrow stripe and a pointy yellow and dark lightly curved and fairly lengthy bill. One of the wrens is pressed down into the dirt and waving its wing to get up, while the other presses down on it with its leg.
A small bird sits on the top of a branch, singing. It has a reddish breast, a white and a black head and back.
A small brown bird has its legs spread wide as it clutches onto stems on either side of it, with its back turned to us but its face facing sideways and fully visible in profile. It sat like this for a while so it must not have been as inconvenient as it looks. The bird has a light underside and a lot of the brown feathers on its back have a light brown edge and a dark brown inside. Its legs are reddish and its bill a mix of yellow and dark brown. Its eyes are dark.
Two black-necked grebes. One is almost standing upright to run across the water as it is being chased by a very angry territorial bird. The aggressor is instead angled very low, facing forward like an arrow or dart.
A spoonbill - a bird with a very long black bill that ends in a sort of spoon-shaped yellow tip, great for sifting food from the water. The bird is otherwise mostly white, with a yellowish band around the base of its neck and long black legs. It has a white crest and dark red eyes.
A golden plover in a field. Behind it, out of focus and with its back to us, stands a lapwing (kievit).
A male golden oriole flying from one tree top to another. The bird is bright, bright yellow, with a reddish bill and black wings with some yellow spots. Its tail is black tipped with yellow.
A yellow wagtail singing from the top of a plant. It is calling out. The bird has an extremely yellow belly and chin and a greyish blue back and cap with a white eyebrow stripe. It is outlined by sunlight.
Two sand martins - brownish birds with long pointy wings and, in rest, forked tails, cling to a manually erected sand hill, where they sit at a freshly opening which will soon turn into a tunnel. Ther chin and belly are white. Three other sand martins swarm around them and look in their direction, as if to see how they're getting on.
A Caspian tern sits at the edge of a lake created through sand extraction. Behind it a common tern is bathing at the water's edge, looking in many ways like a miniature version of its huge cousin.
A white wagtail sits in the water, seen from behind. From this perspective it is mostly grey and white, with a black cap and chin and a white face.
A brown bird sits on a branch. It's back, tail, wings and cap are all reddish brown, whereas the lower half of its body is more greyish brown. Its bill is dark with a yellowish base and it has large black eyes surrounded by a light brown eye ring.
A hooded crow flying with something in its bill, seen from a slightly higher vantage point. The crow, when seen from above, is mostly black, with a silvery grey back and shoulders.
A puddle in the dunes, likely the result of sea water being trapped here after a particularly high tide. The water has turned coppery red.
A bird of prey glides low to the ground over a grassy landscape, its wings in a shallow v position. It is scanning its surroundings and its long legs are dangling downwards, so it can more easily strike out at any prey.