Nature Observation

While I was working on the potfield today an African Stonechat kept me company. I heard his remarkable noise the whole day, it’s like he taps two stones together. It’s became a rather rare species in the Netherlands, because there’s not very much undisturbed rough vegetation in our neatly raked country. Obviously, he found a good place for a nest in the roughs between the potfield and the creek and was working himself to the bone for his lady. It was raining and it was cold, but the Stonechat made me happy. Family Stonechat will eat hundreds of harmful insects a day this spring and summer. That’s why we don’t mow that strip of grass.

April 28 2012