For Danny (grandson) who likes to know about the animals

We have been cycling through areas that are nature reserves and have lots of interesting plants and animals, mainly birds. Regretfully we are not good at bird names, nor at recognisng their songs. We have been by the sea a lot, so plenty of sea birds and also by lakes, so fresh water and marsh birds as well.  There have been lots and lots of oyster catchers, particularly in Germany, and herons and plenty of gulls. The sea gulls don't seem to make as much noise as in England.  In Holland there was a very common bird in the fields and on the edge of canals, with a yellow front, that took off with small swooping movement as we passed.  We also saw a large bird, bigger than a heron with long legs and mainly white,  We wondered if it was a stork.  In Holland and Germany there was also a bird with a pointed crest on its head and white front with grey/brown back. We saw it on a German poster called a kiebitz. there have also been plenty of ducks and geese.  On Norderney, an island off the coast of Holland, there were lots of pairs of geese with goslings.  We have also seen the geese flying overhead in their V formation.  Swifts, or were they swallows, have been common further East.

Each camp site seemed to have its own type of birds and we have been woken up to different dongs.  Today it was a blackbird that sounded as if it was just above our heads.  Two days before there was a cuckoo; one does not actually see cuckoos very often, though one does hear them, so we were lucky.

Anyone who was keen on birdwatching would have found the areas we have been through really interesting.


We have also seen rabbits on the two islands we visited and hares in the fields on the mainland.  The drainage canals have had lots of ducks and we have heard frogs but not seen them. The farms we passed have had mainly sheep and cows.  There was one field of pigs in Germany. They were amongst a lot of green plants and looked much better than in the bare fields we see in England.  In Holland, farms and villages often had one field of small animals, a few sheep, perhaps a goat, sometimes small deer, ducks and geese and perhaps swans.  One village had 2 black swans on their lake.  Horses have also been very common and in one nature reserve in Holland there were a couple of wild horses, (or were they just free range?), Two days ago there was a whole field of deer.

However, the most common animal has been sheep.  Everywhere sheep.  Often we have cycled along paths next to dykes, with sheep feeding all the way up the sides of the dyke.  By the evening, though, they like to stand on the path, perhaps the concrete is warmer. While they stand there they do lots of poo, which later can stick to the cycle tyres.  If you then go over gravel, the stones stick to the poo and make an awful noise as they hit the wheels.