Well, with the global warming being a hot item nowadays, we see a lot of wind farms appearing in the landscape. Here just a few of these huge mills.

This morning we started off with a strawberry breakfast and our Moose just loved it. And we told him to eat well, because we were going for a long walk in the fields in the area. Luckily he is a very easy going Moose and just does what he is told (sometimes !)

Today we opted for a walk of about 12 km (7,5 miles).
We downloaded this walk (nr. 33 to be precise) from a Dutch walkingsite – Wandelgids Zuidlimburg - which is particularly focusing on walks in our area, the Province of Limburg.
(All photos in this article can be enlarged by clicking on them)

The walk started in a town called Heijenrath (Limburg, NL) and for the first half hour we walked through a forest.



Then we had to make a sharp turn and were presented this lovely panoramic view of the landscape of this area:



The path took us along the wood edges for at least 2 km's and provided lots of scenic views and of course wildlife and flowers.




We spotted a family of buzzards with at least two juveniles trying to follow their mum. We also saw plenty of woodpeckers (all sizes and shapes), tree creepers and butterflies. But none of them wanted to pose for our camera.


On the look out for birds

And then it was back to the woods again and the route took us to these "holle wegen" as we call them in Dutch. Free translated: sunken roads. Very difficult to walk as they are always steep and the ground is uneven. We also had to watch out for mountain bikers who came bicycling down this narrow path. But it was very picturesque as the photo shows.



But as we all know, walking makes hungry and we decided to have a lunch break. We ended up in Teuven (Belgium) as we had crossed the Belgium border somewhere along the track. We both took a delicious salad at Moeder de Gans. In English the Restaurant is called Mother Goose Inn. If you are in the neighborhood, it is definitely worth a visit.



But oh well, after 45 minutes we had to get moving again cause we still had to walk at least another 5 km's. We crossed the border again into the Netherlands. Here is the border post in the middle of nowhere.



After going through beautiful fields we ended up on Slenaken where this small church welcomed us at the town centre.



Slenaken itself was very busy. Although it is just a small town, it now was like peak hour in a big city. Hundreds of tourists where sitting in the pavements of the many restaurants / cafes along the street. We quickly moved on to escape all this and ended up at our car quicker than we thought we would have.

It really was a terrific day, with lots of sun, lots of wildlife, nice scenic views and some good food.
We hope to go for another walk next weekend !

Greetings from Elgar the happy hiking moose!

The last couple of weeks the Great Spotted Woodpecker is a frequent quest at our birdfeeder. Early in the morning and late in the afternoon are his favorite times to eat some peanuts.

This picture shows a male Great Spotted Woodpecker, which can easily be recognised due to the red patch on the back of his head. A juvenile woodpecker has a red patch on its nape (not on the back of its head). The female woodpecker hasn't got a red patch at all. So, it is quite easy to tell who is eating all our peanuts today.

When the Sparrow-Hawk just a couple of days ago caught the house-sparrow in our garden, the juvenile woodpecker was feeding from the birdfeeder, which is only about one meter away from where the sparrow-hawk had landed.
He kept on hanging there stiff as a board, while the sparrow-hawk was plucking its prey on the ground. We could hear the juvenile thinking: "please, don't let her see me, please don't let her see me". The poor creature was hanging in there for at least 10 minutes before he was able to escape to a saver spot.

Almost every night when we go for a little scroll through the fields, we are treated with a sunset. And no sunset is the same!
Here the sunbeams reach out for the last time.