It was the first sunny and warm day of this year so time to put on our walking shoes and to go for a walk. Since a few days we are in the possession of a GPS and Topo maps so this was also an opportunity to see how the GPS works. We downloaded a GPS-track from the Dutch site GPSWalking and transferred it to our GPS. Most pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.

We opted for a 10-kms walk in De Meinweg National Park. De Meinweg National Park is a park of terraced landscape caused by fault lines below the surface. The four terraces bridge a height of about 50 metres and feature woodland, health land, bog pools and streams.
De Meinweg is the only nature area in the Netherlands where a population of wild boars is allowed to roam freely. The adder also occurs here. De Meinweg National Park forms part of the German-Dutch Cross-border Park Maas-Swalm-Nette

After a couple of 100 metres an Anguis Fragilis or better known as slowworm/blindworm crossed our path. In Dutch this creature is called a Hazelworm. It is a limbless reptile, which is active during the day (diurnal) and occasionally basks in the sun, but is more often found hiding beneath rocks and logs.



Slowworms are often mistaken for a snake, but have some distinctive features which differentiate them from snakes:

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, although rather cold for the time of the year. We decided to do a walk in our neighborhood and crossed an area where a new 'forest' has to arise. Lots of young trees and bushes are planted there. A small track was leading into this area and we followed it in the believe that it would bring us closer to home.

But, as you can guess, that did not work out well and we did ended up in a open field. And then...suddenly there they were: 4 lovely Roe Deer. Ofcourse they spotted us straight away as we made too much noise. We had never expected to see Roe Deer in this particular area, although we just recently asked ourselves the question whether we would ever see Roe Deer at all (in the wild that is)

I was able to make one 'lucky' shot: One of the Roe Deers just jumped up to run away. When you look closely you can see 2 more Roe Deer in front of him/her trying to get away as well. The picture can be enlarged a little bit by clicking on it.