At the beginning of April, I visited the Boerenglop bird hide in Klazienaveen, The Netherlands together with a fellow photographer. The weather was mostly cloudy, which quickly forces you to work with high ISO values. That is why I wanted to experiment with a slower shutter speed, allowing me to keep the ISO values lower. That worked out quite well, although you do need a lot of luck to capture a truly sharp photo. Motion in a photo can certainly look beautiful, but for me the eye still has to remain sharp. In the end, I came home with more than 3,000 photos, of which I only kept around 30.
During our visit, it was very quiet when it came to birds, but the squirrels were everywhere. There were three or four of them constantly taking turns appearing in front of the lens, while you could also spot them in the background from time to time. In the end, I came home with an entire series of squirrel photos, which was absolutely not a bad thing. They are incredibly cute to watch, and at one point one of them even walked right past us. At that moment, we had to stay completely still, but I truly enjoyed the experience and the chance to observe them from so close by. Once you have experienced a moment like that up close, a visit to the zoo feels very different afterwards.
Besides the squirrels, I also managed to take a number of bird photos, although I do notice that I am becoming more selective with them. By now, I have built up a beautiful collection of photos featuring different bird species. Still, the most important thing is that I once again had a fantastic day, although I do hope my next visit to a bird hide will come with a bit more sunshine.
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