Page 108 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #05

INSIDE THE IMAGE

BLACK-NECKED GREBE, EMERPUT LAKE, BREDA, THE NETHERLANDS

Every spring I head
down to Emerput Lake,
located in the middle of
the town of Breda. At first sight, the
lake doesn’t look like anything special
– just a square body of poor-quality
water fringed by trees and surrounded
by an industrial estate, houses and
roads. But this lake has a secret. Its
waters provide a breeding ground for
huge numbers of mosquitoes, which
in turn sustain the Netherland’s
largest colony of black-necked grebes.

LIGHT ON THE LAKE
I decided to photograph the grebes’
beautiful courtship dance in the
lake’s small area of reedbed. To avoid
disturbing the birds (and to stay out
of sight of passers-by), I used an
inflatable floating hide. I waded into
the water three hours before dawn,
then waited quietly for everything to
wake up. On this particular morning,
the birds were already up and about, 4
hunting mosquitoes in the darkness.
As you’d expect from an urban
environment, there is an assortment
of artificial lighting all around the
lake, including the fluorescent
striplights that illuminate West 1
Brabant Police Station, which
overlooks the north shore of the
lake. These lamps bathe one patch
of water in an eerie blue glow. A
grebe swimming into this other-
wordly scene was just the photograph
I had in mind.

2

DATA FILE

CAMERA Canon 1D X
LENS EF 600mm f/4L
IS II USM
EXPOSURE manual
mode: 1/160 sec at
f/4, ISO 5000

108 BBC Wildlife Spring 2018