Spiders, frogs, fungi, and birds of Naardermeer nature reserve

This is a Dutch video, about protests against plans to build a road close to the Naardermeer nature reserve.

Today, to the Naardermeer reserve, consisting mainly of lake and marshlands.

On our way, we passed circles of Clitocybe nebularis mushrooms.

Near the old fisherman’s house from where our boat would start, shaggy mane fungus.

Our guide, Jaap van der Vliet, and his six passengers went on board.

Mr van der Vliet said there were 25 dragonfly and damselfly species in this nature reserve. Soon, we saw a rather big dragonfly species, the migrant hawker.

We would see several more later. Not many bird species are able to catch fast flying dragonflies. The few who are include the black tern, nesting on artificial nests in the Naardermeer; and the hobby. Other bird species, like coots, usually cannot catch dragonflies. Our guide told us how he once saw that a stupid dragonfly landed on a rush close to a coot’s beak. The coot then could eat him, in those, for the coot, exceptionally lucky circumstances.

Cowbane plants growing along banks.

Among the fish in this reserve are spined loach; weatherfish; perch; pike; and belica.

Common snipes flying away along the bank.

At a bank: honey mushrooms. A common frog. And a fen raft spider. It is a female. Males are much smaller, and are eaten by females after copulation.

The fen raft spider is one of the UK’s most endangered species and is found at only three sites in the UK. 200 babies are being hand-reared by experts at Chessington Zoo in Surrey in readiness for being released next month when they will contribute to new populations being established in the Suffolk Broads: here.

Our Naardermeer guide shows us photos he has made in this region, including of a grass snake he made in Spanderswoud.

Along the banks royal ferns and crested buckler-ferns.

Muskrats live here.

On the lake great crested grebes, great cormorants, tufted ducks.

We arrive at a place where ducks used to be caught for food. A kingfisher.

A female Sympetrum vulgatum dragonfly.

A wren hiding in a hole in a big tree.

Many fungi. Including Pholiota aurivella; sulphur tuft; horsehair parachute; Scleroderma citrinum; Mycena galericuluta; Russula nigricans; zoned tooth mushroom; false death cap; deer mushroom; bay bolete; Clitocybe albofragans; Coprinus micaceus.

Also common ladyfern.

The boat goes back. Tufted ducks, wigeons.

Twice a great crested egret.

A buzzard flying overhead.

Greater spearwort flowering.

As we go back, in a pool not far from the Naardermeer, spoonbills and shovelers.

A bit further, a buzzard resting on a pole in a meadow.