A Windy Wildlife Walk in Leiden

Continuing a series of irregular posts about wildlife-spotting (see also Learning to See and If There is No Home for Nature), today I went for a walk with my dad through the polder behind his house in Leiden, which means binoculars are in order.

Sheep grazing next to the lake

As always in Holland, water is never far away – there is a golf course where most of the holes are sandwiched between dykes and open water (which probably makes completing the course fairly challenging unless you have several spare balls handy!) and a nature reserve with lakes and spits of land giving lots of opportunities to spot birdlife. 

Wind-blown trees
on the polder

As we walked past two windmills and many sheep, we saw a heron, two tufted ducks and a moorhen as well as the ubiquitous coots and mallards. Gazing up into the sky was also fruitful, with a sparrowhawk and a kestrel and many clouds to watch (my friend Jeremy has written a great piece about cloudwatching here). There's no shortage of sky round here! There is even a spot for wild swimming in the lake here, which I’d love to see more of in Britain.March is certainly living up to its reputation today: the wind blowing so hard that I can definitely see why people say that “March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb”. The wind blows so strongly off the sea and across the flat land, as you can see by these trees planted on the polder. 

At Christmas, we didn’t get very far round the nature reserve because it started to hail: wind-blown hail is not something you want to stay out in for very long! On the other hand, the wind helps control the water, with two windmills on our walk associated with pumping stations to keep the water where it belongs.

But there are signs of new life everywhere: pussywillow just starting to come out of its buds and crocuses filling the grass verges on our way to church which my mum said had not been there last week. Spring will soon be here!

See Also:

• Four Reasons to Look Up More Often
• Learning to See
• If There is No Home for Nature
• Wildlife on Track: October