I love dung beetles!! it is big fun to lie on my stomach and watch them. There is so much going on in a pile of dung :-)

There's construction work as huge perfectly round balls of dung are made in no time at all.
There is blossoming love, as the females come flying in and above the dung pile let themselves fall straight into the fresh dung. They come to inspect the male's balls and when they see one they like they just cling onto it.
Than the male goes down on his 'hands' an starts rolling the ball with his hind legs, still with the female attached. They can roll up to 50 times their own bodyweight! They always roll the ball in a straight line to where they want to go, no matter what obstacles there might be (I once saw a couple of dung beetles roll their ball over a leopard's bum).

But on the way to the spot where they are going to bury the ball, there are many dangers! You can get trampled by an elephant, driven over by a vehicle, get eaten by a bird of.. your ball can get stolen by another dung beetle who's too lazy to roll one himself!! And than you'll have to fight. Fight like the brave little gladiator you are...

The Wildlife Diary has been updated with another truly exciting day.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!!

Shot with the 500mm; perhaps not the most obvious macro lens :-)

Tags:   wildlife nature animals insect dung beetle scarab beetle mestkever fight gladiator ball fly flies africa afrika south africa mala mala game drive game reserve safari hvhe1 Hennie van Herden SpecAnimal Mala

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Do you believe in coincidence?

I've searched every possible tree in the neighborhood for owls last winter. Found countless nest boxes but no owls.
Since I was about to give up, around february, it seems that one after the other owl finds mé! First the total surprise of the Eurasian Eagle Owls in the Canon shoot, then the trip to Iceland with the fantastic Short-Eared Owls and now this! (they dó seem to get smaller though every time :-))

We had been visiting family and went home by the time it got dark. The sun had just set when, some 300m from my house, Hans hit the breaks when he saw this cute little 'Little Owl' (how appropriate), sitting just alongside the road on a pole. As we were with Hans' car I didn't have my camera with me so I rushed home, got the camera and went back. Sure enough he was still there, munching down something undeterminable. As he was the next evening when I went out again at dusk to find him, softly calling in the tree above my head.

The next challenge will be to catch it with the moon coming up from behind him but for that I'll need a fair amount of time to make him used to my presence. But you'll be the first to know if I succeed! :-)

Taken off beanbag, ISO 2000, f4, 1/30sec

Tags:   Wildlife nature animal bird bird of prey raptor little owl owl twilight prey tonden netherlands steenuil Athene noctua hvhe1 hennie van heerden SpecAnimal Interestingness1 bravo SearchTheBest AvianExcellence

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Finally! I can tell you all what I've been doing in April. From my absence on Flickr it may have been clear that I was travelling, but unlike normally, I haven't revealed the destination, nor the purpose of my trip to you yet.
Believe me, I was just brimming to share it with you all but I had to wait until the news would become public. (which was today!)

So what was the whole secret about......

Beginning of february I received an email if I would be interested in being featured in Canon Japan's Corporate Branding commercial with as subject Canon's newest camera, the EOS-1D Mark IV!

As you probably can imagine; I wàs interested :-)

To cut a long story short, the above shot is one of Hannah, the gorgeous Eagle Owl, who, together with her companion Garu, was the real star of the commercial shoot.

You can read about my adventures during the shoot on my website (see my profile for the address)where you can also find the link to the footage and some interviews with me. (AAGH!! Completely scary thing to do :-))

I really hope you'll like the result!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!! We are taking the "Tembo" (the boat); out for a trip so the chance to have internet connection is very small. But I really hope to get some lovely shots at 'The Biesbosch" again.

ps. thank you Flickr and all of you guys out there; without you, your support, your comments, your encouragement, this wouldn't have happened to me.

Tags:   wildlife nature owl Eagle Owl Hannah Japan Canon shoot 1D Mark IV Oshima island flight raptor bird Bird of Prey filmset hvhe1 Hennie van Heerden wings BRAVO SpecAnimal Interestingness1 EOS-1D Mark IV AvianExcellence SearchTheBest

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As you know, I'm not much of a 'technical' photographer. To me, photography, or at least my photography, has much more to do with feeling, emotion, touching a certain something.

With this picture both sides were totally right; The shot is full-frame, and apart from converting it from RAW to jpg, straight from camera. But when I shot it I also knew that it would touch me. The look in the old fox's eyes already hit home through the viewfinder. Hope you like it too.

www.hennievanheerden.com

Tags:   wildlife nature animal fox vos old AWD Amsterdamse Waterleiding Duinen Holland Netherlands Nature Reserve waterwingebied Dunes hvhe1 Hennie van Heerden bravo SpecAnimal interestingness5 SpecAnimal: Photo Of The Day

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One more shot of the visit to the Bavarian Forest I liked a lot. Spring was definitively in the air but although Mr. Lynx followed Mrs. Lynx politely upon her quite obvious request, when it came to it, he apparently had a head ache.. :-)

Tags:   Animal Bayerischer Wald Bayern Beieren Big Cat Cat Duitsland Germany Hennie van Heerden hvhe1 Kat Luchs Lynx Lynx lynx Mammal Nationalpark nature Naturpark sneeuw snow sun wildlife winter zon Zoogdieren BRAVO SpecAnimal

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