In an earlier blog I told us that in Iceland we saw many birds, and they gave nicknames such as crooked beak (the rainwhulp), and gold throat.

Golden throat turned out to be called “Grutto” (scientific name: Limosa Limosa).

The Grutto is funny enough the national bird of the Netherlands, while I saw it only once in the Netherlands.

In Iceland, I saw the bird almost daily.

The Grutto has a red-orange throat and chest in the breeding season, which appears to be golden in the sun, hence our nickname “Gold Throat”.

The birds love moist meadows, marshes, and heathlands.

There he picks up larvae of longlegmosquitoes (emelts), insects and earthworms.

Farmers are happy with the Gruttos, as emelts can totally destroy your grass.

In the Netherlands the bird is not doing so well, it is less and less common, probably they fly on to Iceland, because there you see the birds more and more.

We drove in an area where Eider ducks would breed when we came across a beautiful cave couple that wanted to pose for us reasonably.

That's to say. Grutto didn't feel so much like it, but we had the opportunity to shoot the animal nicely.

Gruttos are quite vocal, especially when they want to chase you away, and that's what this bird wanted.

He sat in the pasture, flew over us, sat down on a pole, looked at us penetrating, flew away again.

I was therefore able to photograph the bird in all kinds of perspectives ( as described in Ellis' photo course )

Above the grotto on a pole, the barbed wire marks the pasture, where the female presumably had a nest, and where we had to stay far away.

(Phototechnical: eye level perspective)

The Grutto is a rather large meadow bird, it is about 40 centimeters high.

The bird's wingspan is impressive: up to 70 centimeters.

The bird weighs about 300 to 500 grams, very little compared to its size.

The bird often calls, and its call is described as Utto, Utto, Utto, and his name would come from there (Source: wikipedia).

We have heard the bird shouting from morning to late night.

(Phototechnical: the photo above was taken in light bird's eye view, Grutto didn't get close enough to make a better bird's eye view)

The Grutto is a migratory bird: it hibernates in west Africa.

In spring, it moves back to the north, so you can meet him in the Netherlands from March, in July they all moved even further, for example Iceland.

There they lay four eggs, in the tall grass, well hidden from robbers.

And Dad and Ma are carefully guarding the nest.

We didn't look for it, the animal had enough stress from our photography, but probably wouldn't have been able to find it.

Gruttos are stars in hiding their nests.

A Grutto in flight is an impressive bird:

(phototechnical: frog perspective)

It's like he's yelling at me, “Hey, fifty shades of green right?”

Forward:

After a few flights to distract us, we left the bird alone.

He's not waiting for two photographers who might interfere with his nest.

Grutto was also very tired of us, and showed that:

The photos in this blog were taken in Iceland in the Westfjords, along road number 60.

There's no point in mentioning the exact location: you come across the Gruttos everywhere.

#iamacreator #fifteenshadesofgreen #ugly #pasturebird #migratory #limosalimose