Close Encounters

Peanuts?

My first encounter with a fox up close and personal. When out for a walk quite late in the afternoon with some family at the Amsterdamse Waterleiding Duingebied (the Amsterdam Watercompany Dune area) we first spotted a fox on the other side of a small canal. Already totally excited we snapped some shots of the fox that didn't seemed scared at all! It was a bit dark an unfortunately not the best time to attempt a shot but we tried anyway. After a while the fox started  running in the opposite direction.

If i run i can still make it!

We thought it had enough of us. Suddenly we saw the same fox running towards us as fast as it could. We noticed he or she had a bit of a limp. To our amazement the fox then went into the bushes and then came up to us as if saying i am hungry please give me some food.

Fox chewing on a liga evergreen...

At a 30cm distance it was looking at us and i found some bisquits and raw peanuts in my bag. The fox ate all the bisquits and peanuts.

 Next to the fox there was a hurd of sheep looking most jealous. They even tried to scare the fox away to steel the bisquits. It was amazing to see this beautiful animal from such a short distance. It was a freezing day but worth it! I hope the little fox will survive and it's paw will heal. It is almost spring then it might be a better time for the fox to find food. So if you are ever near this area it is worthwhile checking it out. Apart from foxes there are countless deer,rabbits,sheep,cows, birds of prey, wild swans and more. I have been to no other place were it was that easy to see so many animals except for the zoo!

Waterworld

In the Netherlands at the coast is the Amsterdam waterleiding duingebied, which translates like Amsterdam watercompany dune area. It is a protected area were you almost stumble on deer, rabbits, all sort of birds and ofcourse people (afterall it is the Netherlands).As it was my first visit i was really amazed by the relax almost lazy deer that were not bothered by people at all. It probabely helped i didn't see any dogs running about.The area is covered in typical dune bushes like Buckthorn, small trees and ofcourse European beachgrass to keep the sand from being blown away. It was a bright sunny winters day and people were out in big hords. Despite the amount of people it was still possible to find a quiet path and see plenty of wildlife. Everywhere there were pools, small lakes and canals filled with all sorts of waterbirds like wild swans. It was the first time i saw them in the Netherlands.We saw foxes, at least a lot of deer, wild swans, tufted ducks, plenty of rabbits and more waterbirds. Pretty amazing. I know completely get the reports in the newspaper that the deer were roaming into people's gardens in Zandvoort when they got hungry. Anyway i am a waterfan and love blue so combining the two in one shot was inevitable ; )