Hedge sparrow, treecreepers, and Mauthausen

Today, a walk to three ‘green’ parts of Hilversum: first the Taludweg; then, the Peerlkamplaan; then, the old cemetery.

Along the Taludweg, most of the old canal was frozen. In the open water spots, many mallards and a few coots. Moorhens ate grass on the banks.

A bit higher up, a dunnock. A jay showing the beautiful blue feathers in its wings. Nuthatch sounds. Great tits, blue tits, magpies, wood pigeons.

The Peerlkamplaan is a wooded path from Hilversum town centre to the Corversbos nature reserve; originally from the nineteenth century.

There, two treecreepers on a smallish tree in a garden. One flew away, but the other one climbed all the way up. A few minutes later, another or the same treecreeper on a big tree along the Peerlkamplaan. Usually, these small brownish birds have a very good mimicry on brown trees. However, this tree was a bit greenish from moss, making it somewhat easier to spot the treecreeper.

People were buried in the old cemetery of Hilversum from the late eighteenth century till 1941. Today, it is a garden in the town centre. There is a monument for local schoolchildren who died as a result of the 1940-1945 nazi occupation. And a monument including a stone from the infamous deathly quarry of Hitler’s Mauthausen concentration camp; remembered in the Mauthausen music cycle by Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis. That monument was put there on 5 May (Dutch national holiday, celebrating the end of the nazi occupation in 1945) 1970.