During our holiday in the Netherlands we encountered lots of wildlife. Mostly birds but we also saw numerous hares in the fields.

Hares are similar to rabbits but have much longer ears and much bigger and stronger back legs.

We also saw some wild rabbits including a white one.

Cockchafers (Maybugs):

Whilst staying at Beekse Bergen Safari Park we saw hundreds of cockchafers. They are big flying beetles that make a very loud noise when they fly. They are harmless and not very smart. At night, they fly towards the light, which means they bash into windows and end up landing on their back on the concrete, unable to right themselves. Each morning, mummy & I picked up all the live ones are moved them safely to the hedges. One night one flew into our van, I would have been really scared if I didn’t know they were harmless.

Great Crested Grebes:

We watched a family of Great Crested Grebes on the water. The parents were feeding their two chicks bits of food. Afterwards, the chicks climbing up onto their mums back and snuggled down into her feathers whilst she swam off under the bridge we were stood on.

Goose Swap:

We found a pair of adult of Canada geese that were raising 4 goslings, nothing strange in that except the goslings were all a different breed of goose. We think they were Embden goslings.

I know that the goslings of Canada geese have black beaks and black feet and these goslings had yellow beaks and feet. The goslings down feathers were also much brighter yellow than those of Canada geese.

Grey Herons:

In the UK herons are very nervous of people, but in the Netherlands we were able to get really close to several different herons. I like them as they remind me of Teradactyls.

Other birds:

One our way to the Netherlands we stopped to visit family in Hampshire and spent a few hours at Petersfield Lake where we spotted a pair of coots building a nest under one of the gettys. We bought a bag of food and I feed the geese and a black swan.

At one campsite there were several families of ducks, geese and chickens roaming around.

Whilst cycling around Kinderdijk we came across a dead fish on the pathway. We think a big bird had caught it and then dropped it. It smelt really bad and something had already eaten it’s eyes.