I see a lot of photographers turning home after the sun sets. Actually, most bird photographers leave the field even before the sun has set, because they consider the light too dim for nicely lit portraits. I always try to wait until there is really no glimpse of light, before I leave a scene. This photo was taken during a weekend with my friends of the Wageningse Natuurfotografen on the Island of Tiengemeten. I positioned myself facing the sunset, with a large group of Barnacle Geese between me and the sun, in order to make silhouette shots of the birds in flight. After the sun had set, the sky was still like fire. I caught this group of geese with my camera and followed them until their flight created the perfect composition…….

Cheers,

Niels

I am suffering from an infleunza virus, that’s why I couldn’t comply with my weekly schedule for this blog.

Like all nature photographers I regularly have to rely on the expertise of ecologists and researchers to get the shots I want. This was also the case when I wanted to visit the wintering roosts of Pond bat Myotis dasycneme. Pond bat is a species listed in the Natura 2000 annex. Its range expands in a rather small band from Western europe into Russia, with the Netherlands having the largest population. One of my colleagues was so kind to take me on one of his annual censuses in a coastal bunker complex of the Atlantic Wall. Here he is searching for bats behind a double wall inside one of the bunkers.

Cheers,

Niels