Fish

In Holland we have quite some zoo's, and some are really nice. One of the nicest we have in Holland, is called Burgers zoo.

In this park they have a couple of theme buildings.
Like mangrove, bush, desert and the ocean. The ocean is one of my favorites.

It contains over 8 milion liters of water, and manny different animals. Like the bulletfish on the left.

You start your tour, through the ocean at the beach.
Then when walking , you go deeper and deeper. First the fishtanks mostly contains coral, and at the end mostly fish.

Onces your are under the water level completely, the big fish on the right is waiting for you. I can't find the right name of the species, so if you know please leave it in a comment.

There are way more fish in this tank.

Then going through the tunnel, you end up in a room with a big glass wall. This is where the though guys/girls are kept.

They have Hamerheads, Blacktips, Zebra sharks and a couple of other fish. The hamerheads are kept a part from the others, they also have bubbles in front of the windows.

At the other half you can see the blacktips, who swim arround to show who's the boss in that part of town.

Being so close to these magnificent animals, is just really cool. I could go to the zoo and just stare a couple off hours, to the big window and see the sharks swim.

Later you will enter a glass tunnel so you see the fish all arround you. My pictures failed, so I can't show the Manta that is also nice.

So if you are in Holland and have time enough, go one day to "Burgers zoo" in Arnhem. Or to one of the other nice zoo's. Because if you like butterflies, you would do better visitting Emmen "Noorder dierenpark".

Raptors

Raptors are one of my favourite types of animals. They look very confident in everything they do, even when they fly away.

That is the problem for me since I don't have any high end zoom lens. So it's very hard to get close enough for a nice capture.

So I need to take my chances, when I get an opportunity once in a while. Most of the time in zoos or at bird shows.

This "Harris hawk" I saw at a birdshow, near an old water fortress. It is not a native species here in Holland, but she looks cool.

She was one of 5 birds at the show, but the other birds were more shy.

My favourite raptor will be, the "Philippine eagle" even though I haven't seen one in real life. So if somebody knows where I can see it, close to Manilla please post it in a comment.

 Nr2 on my list of Philippine raptors, is the "Brahminy kite". I did spotted one of those in the wild, when we just arrived at the "Chocolate hills" in Bohol.

The one we saw was flying and too far, to capture with my camera. But at least I saw one in the wild.

Later that day we saw three of them in captivity, at some the places with "Tarsiers".

The one on my pictures, is hold in a cage with the biggest python of Bohol.

The way they are kept, isn't as good as they deserve.

Well they still get enough food, otherwise their owners don't have anything to show tourists like me.

Because the storyteller, who went in to the python as a man and came out as a woman. Wouldn't be a good enough attraction to attract all the tourists.

At Palawan we didn't see any raptors in the wild. We saw kingfishers, egrets and manny crabs but no raptors.

But during our day tour, arround "Puerto princesa", we visited the Crocodile farm.

They don't have just crocodiles, but actually it is a small zoo. So if you ever go there, after the tour walk arround through the forrest behind it.

When I was there they had even a "Crested serpent eagle". This bird was not healthy enough to go back into the wild.

In one of the cages all the way in the back, we found the next bird.

The "Chocolate hawk owl" is a small hawk owl, which is commonly found in almost every island of the Philippines; ironically, except in Palawan.

There were a few of them in the cage, they weren't shy at all. This one was even posing for me.

Macro Holland

I love to shoot macro picture's because then the scope can be so much bigger. With my macro objective I can find so manny subjects in a small area.

Unlike with taking bird pictures when you have to search a wide area to find, a few species. With my macro objective I walk into the garden, and I can always find some species of insects.

Like here on the right this fly was sitting on one of the containers.

Offcourse I also go further away to spot different insects. But when I go to the park I can always spot some butterflies, grasshoppers or dragonflies.

On the left a male "Sympetrum vulgatum" the dutch name would be "Steenrode heidelibel - Stonered heatherdragonfly". When you see this one you wouldn't say red. But unlike the males the females have a nice red color.

We have 2 species that look a lot like each other, but you can tell by the legs. This species has black-yellow legs, the other one just black.

These dragonflies are always an interesting subject,

because of there complicated bodies.

On the right an other male "Sympetrum vulgatum",

this one was hanging frozen in the grass. I accidentally spotted this one, while looking for mushrooms.

Macro Philippines

These are some of the macro pictures I took, in the Philippines. Since most of the birds that you see, in Antipolo are sparrows and pigeons.

I rather take my macro objective, to see some different wildlife. I still have a problem to get close to the butterflies, outside the butterfly garden. For some reason if you get within 3 meters they fly away.

Luckily I was able to get close to the small blue ones. I don't what species it is.

As you can see, they aren't camera shy at all. The picture on the left, shows mating butterflies.

From those to the one on the left with the darker wings is the female. The male on the right has some lighter colored wings.

In Antipolo you still have enough trees and bushes, so there are more insects to spot.

At the picture on the right, you see a Sweetpotato bug. Like the name already says it is mostly found at the sweet potato plant.

This one however is spotted at an egg plant. With some of it's friends. I never saw an insect like this before, so I was quite happy to take some photo's of it.

I guess I was the only one who was happy, because they turn out to be a pest. So if you have them on your veggies, you better get them away.

The picture on the left with the profile of the butterfly, is taken at the Palawan butterfly garden. We went on a day tour during our trip to Palawan.

Before we left, I didn't knew we would visit this one. So I brought 2 lenses but not my macro.

This picture is taken with a 70-300mm tele objective.
I is not a detailed full colored shot, but still I'm happy with this one.

The Palawan butterfly garden is a must go to, when you are at Palawan.

Seals

In the seas arround Holland, we have seals
with the local name "Zeehond".

They are really fun to see in the wild. Last century the population of seals, became low. Thats why two rescue centers got founded, here in Holland.

Now a days the population is bigger again, and the seals are doing good. Schools go to the centers, to educate the children about how important the sea is.

Most of the seals are found when they are young and lost. In the centers they get, food and brought up, untill they are big enough. When big enought they will be released into the wild, to help making the population grow.

But too bad not all seals can be released back into the wild. Because some of them are wounded or have eye problems.

The eye problems are not a big problem to find food, they can use their wishkers for that. But above the water, it is vital to have a good pair of eyes.

Red Roses

I put this rose in my table studio, to test my camera. It might not be perfect, but I'm happy with it. This was a test, and I know I need to improve it. 

Mushrooms everywhere

The mushrooms are back, so quickly take some pictures before they are gone.

As you can see on this spot there is a decent ammount of mushrooms.

It can be nice to take just a straight forward picture of them.

But this time I wanted to do something different with it. So I thought about it before I went, and took my mirror with me. On de right you can see the idea, I was thinking about.

But having the mirror this obivious, in my picture was not what I wanted. So I turned the mirror and repositioned myself, as you can see on the picture below.

Still the picture is to bright at the left side, but the color of the mushrooms I liked. Then I took the same picture from a slightly different angle, and that gave me a good result I think.

I'm happy with the effect and I didn't need any editing program for it.