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For several years now, I’ve had the habit of publishing a selection of photos with my highlights of the year on my personal Facebook page at the end of the year. This year, I also started publishing more of the photos I took in the Netherlands on my website. That started with the Spectacled Eider on Texel in January, and my first monthly overview covered May 2025. Recently, I also published an overview of autumn 2025. It seemed nice to also publish a full year overview here now. For readers who are not familiar with the Netherlands: the places I write about are located in the Netherlands unless stated otherwise.
Fall is one of the most enjoyable times of the year for birdwatchers in the Netherlands. It is a long and gradual period, roughly spanning from the last two weeks of August until early November, during which new (scarce) species can be found every few weeks. Migration picks up again, temperatures start to drop, and birding becomes fun once more. Plenty of reasons to head outside!
The last place I’ll be writing a separate report about is Murchison Falls National Park. Uganda offers the best of both worlds with excellent rainforest and also excellent savanna where the more typical African animals can be found such as Lions, Giraffes, Elephants and so forth. During our trip, we visited several typical savanna parks, including Lake Mburo, Queen Elizabeth National Park, and finally Kidepo National Park. Personally, I thought Murchison Falls was the most beautiful location of the four, which is why the post will focus on this park. Of course I can’t help, but name a few of the highlights from the other parks as well!
In the summer of 2025, I spent three weeks traveling through Uganda. Some of the most remarkable days or sightings from this trip I’m writing out in separate blog posts with plenty of photos. This time it’s Semliki’s turn!
The Chimp Trek feels a bit like the natural counterpart to the Gorilla Trek in Uganda. The parallels are easy to see: both animals belong to the so-called great apes, and in both cases they are habituated to people. No binoculars required!
Some of my trips revolve around finding one very specific species. For example, when I traveled to China, my main goal was to see the Giant Panda. We invested two full weeks in the search, and fortunately, that effort paid off! On other trips, the focus isn’t always on a single species but rather on seeing as many birds or mammals as possible. In Uganda, it was clear from the very beginning that the main goal of our group was to see as many bird species as we could.
Bali is one of those places that hardly needs an introduction for most people. For years, it has been known as a haven for European vacationers looking to go a bit farther than the Spanish sun and perhaps also interested in learning the basics of yoga. But Bali also hosts a variety of fascinating bird species! For me, Bali was primarily a stopover en route to a place that dóes require an introduction for many: the country of Timor-Leste, or East Timor. In that country, I hoped to photograph blue whales underwater. But first, a stopover in Bali!
In February 2024, Arie-Willem van der Wal, Jacob Molenaar, and I went to Estonia for a week to search for Eurasian lynx. We planned to spend four days and four nights searching for the lynx, and on the fifth day, we would look for a special duck: the Steller’s eider. Now that the first four days had gone really well, it was time for the icing on the cake!
The Eurasian lynx is much more widely distributed than its Iberian cousin, but much harder to see! The Iberian lynx was the very first cat I ever saw back in 2018, and since then, my list of cat sightings has steadily grown. In Europe, there were only two new cats for me to see: the European wildcat and the Eurasian lynx. I never rushed to look for the Eurasian lynx so far, thinking it will surely happen someday! This year, the opportunity finally arose to seriously make an effort to see it, and with success!
Giant Panda is of course the iconic animal of China. However, the country is also known for another panda: the Red Panda or little panda. This animal actually isn’t even genetically close to the Giant Panda. They are both carnivores and that’s about it. Actually, this animal is genetically distinct not only from the Giant Panda, but also from just about every other animal on the planet. As one of the few animals, the Red Panda single-handedly represents both a genus and a family. That family falls under the superfamily Musteloidea, which also includes raccoons, skunks and weasels. Besides being genetically special, it is also a very attractive animal to look at. So I really wanted to see this one!
