Heeswijk-Dinther - habitat, Netherlands

Closing the set on this small hike to give some background on this habitat. The Heeswijk-Dintherse Bossen, is a really tiny forest in the south of the Netherlands. Most of this forest is privately owned yet opened under conditions to the public for recreation, which includes people walking dogs or just enjoying a hike in a forest, horse-riding, and mountain bikers (without any actual mountains).

This is a situation typical for dutch forests. They are all planted forests, and intensely used by people. As such, biodiversity is low to very low.

However, I managed to find my little sanctuary even in this tiny place, which you can see on the photo. At the far end of the forest, where hardly a soul comes, the owner left this open space in the forest. He used to farm it, but stopped 3 years ago (in the top right you can see corn crops of a part he does use). This open space is about 70m deep by 30-40m wide. It is left to wild growth and unmanaged.

Just 3 years of leaving it alone, letting the sun, wild flowers and insects take their course has made it a really awesome place for macro photography. Almost all photos in this set...

423Heeswijk-Dinther

...have been taken on this minuscule stretch of land. Our forests are in a deeply sad state, but places like these are small beams of hope in enjoying nature in a country devoid of nature.