- info@naturebylennart.com
After I had decided for myself that I wanted to focus my trips on seeing all the wild cats of the world I had all kinds of big plans, but hadn’t actually seen any. It was time to change that! The Iberian lynx is the rarest cat species in the world and is threatened by extinction. Luckily things are looking better now for the species. Still the number of individuals is around 500, so they are not yet out of the danger zone. Despite the low numbers this cat is much more easy to see than the Eurasian lynx. Just go to the Sierrra de Andujar in Spain and with a bit of luck you will see it. So that’s also my plan, but instead of driving up and down the road over there and scanning the area in the hope of bumping into one, I want to have it really close. That’s why I’ve booked a photo hide for three days in the area, hoping for a close view. After my flight from Amsterdam to Malaga, I picked up my rental car and drove to Andujar. There I spent the night in my car. The next morning I’m taken with a 4×4 to one of the hides. Then the waiting starts…
Today was my first day of what would be three days staying in a photo hide with the purpose of photographing an Iberian Lynx. The hides are located in Andujar in Spain. For the night I had the opportunity to sleep at the campsite not far from the hides. I initially thought this would be a regularly used camping, but apparently it’s not very common to go for the camping option during winter. I get permission to sleep in the kitchen of the building next to the camp site.
We’ve been on the ship the Plancius for four days now. After we took off from Longyearbyen, we sailed north in the direction of the pack ice. On the first day I saw already a species that was a huge target for me, the largest animal on the planet: blue whale! The birds are also coming along nicely, photographing flyby puffins is a challenge but it gets easier. With a successful start in Longyearbyen I have already seen most of the birds I’ve been wanting to see. Today is the day that we should arrive at the pack ice and that means a big chance on the main target of the trip: Polar Bear!
A couple of weeks ago I happened to notice a big discount offer for a Polar Bear Special cruise around Svalbard. Seeing Polar Bears at an affordable price sounded really good so I quickly made the decision. Seeing a polar bear is something a lot of nature enthusiasts want to do at some point in their life and for me this was no different. The benefit of booking late is also that you don’t have to wait very long before the trip starts. So, after a long travel and a night sleeping on the floor of Gardermoen airport, my plane finally landed on the airport of Longyearbyen. The ship would leave tomorrow in the afternoon so I have time to do some birding before the actual trip starts. After I’ve stored my stuff it’s time to go birding!
In 2016 I went for a short trip to Israël. It was mostly a culturally oriented trip, while I of course did my best to see some nice animals on the side as well. It was a nice trip on which I met pretty nice people wherever I went. The birds were a different matter though!
