After Thursday at the ringing station we headed over to Friesland where on Saturday and Sunday we were spend the two days supporting and videoing a UK Medieval combat team, White Company at an event at Kening Striid.
Early Friday afternoon we had a walk around part of the nearby Grutte Wielen NR.
The area is mainly reeds and areas of open water, with shallow areas. There were no waders to be seen apart from a single party of Snipe, but there was a single Great Egret, eight Spoonbills roosting on one pool, up to six White Storks in the area, Marsh Harrier and Buzzard over, and a few unseen Bearded Tits pinging at various locations.
Common Snipe
White Stork
There were a lot of Dragon and Damselflies, mainly Common Blue and Blue-tailed, with a few Willow Emerald Damselflies, together with Black-tailed Skimmers and Common Darter, plus Southern and Brown Hawkers.
Willow Emerald Damselfly
Common Darter
Blue-tailed Damselfly
Black-tailed Skimmer
The event on the Saturday and Sunday took place in a park called Vijversburg, which like most areas of the Netherlands had a number of waterways and open water areas, which held again a number of the common dragon and damselflies.
Common Darter
Migrant Hawker
If anyone would like to see what Medieval combat is all about the events entered by White Company were all recorded. These are not re-enactment events, but full contact sport events, fought by individuals to win, based on point scoring, loosely similar to a number of 1v1 fight sports, such as boxing etc; and in the team events, they are fought to when all your opponents are down to the last man. The videos can be watched on Youtube.