Catching up posting pics

Here are some pics again which I made during a cyclingtrip on one of my regular routes. I often ride from my hometown Utrecht, through Oud-Zuilen, Maarssen, Breukelen, Nieuwersluis and Loenen. It's a very nice route. If you take the camera with you, you always find something interesting to photograph from birds, nature, landscapes etc.. And besides the many photograph opportunities it's also a very nice and gorgeous route to ride. Also an advantage is that about 95 % of the cyclingroad is asphalt which guarantees a comfortable ride.

Unfortunately the wheather has become worse the past few days, but the past weeks I've been lucky and I drove hundreds of kilometres on this same route. It still doesn't bore me.

In this post you see a selection of pictures that I made on April 22nd, a little more than two weeks ago. And again it's a mix of animals (birds), still lifes, landscapes and houses. Most of them will speak for themselves, I guess.

This heronnest with youg herons was taken with the Nikon AF-S VR 70-300 mm f 4.5-5.6G IF-ED on maximum zoom. Because the nest was on the other side of the river and about 25 to 30 metres high in the tree I had to make a cutout from the original picture to get them at this close-up size. Despite the maximum zoom and the fact that I didn't use a tripod the result is quite sharp I think. I like the mohawks on the heads of the youg herons.

I wonder where the grebe is looking at.

The reflection in the water of the leaves and branches gives a bit strange effect around the swimming duck and her two younsters

It was hard to take pictures of the swan without any shadow. But because of the position of the wings I wanted to take some pics anyway. On the third and the fourth pic it doesn't bother too much, I think in these two pics it probably enhances the picture.

I already posted a picture from this electricity distribution house as a preview in my former post. Here is a selection of the whole serie. As you can see it's not that big from the other side of the river Vecht. So it's not that strange I didn't notice this remarkable point in the landscape earlier during one of my previous cyclingtrips.

You might think I put this empty Gauloisesbox by myself for compositional reasons, but I swear I didn't. I noticed it while I was taking the pics from the electricity distributionhouse.

This picture is unsharp because these babyducks were moving pretty fast in the water. But it also gives an impression of movement in the picture, I think.