In the centre of the province Gelderland, you will find the Veluwe. It is one of the largest unspoiled nature areas in North-West Europe (more than 5.000 square kilometres) and it is the oldest nature reserve in Holland. The landscape is unique, with forest, moor and sandy parts and is inhabited by red deer, fallowdeer, roedeer, wild boar and mouflon sheep.

• Red deer: Cervus elaphus

  Food: Leaves, fruit, herbs, grass.
  Height: 125 cm.
  Weight: 125 - 135 kilo.
  Mating season: Half september till half october.
  Red deer are common at the Hoge Veluwe. They prefer to live in quiet areas. Therefor you will rarely see them. Only the male deer have antlers and they grow to large sizes. Every year the antlers are thrown off in february-march. The furcoat is reddish brown in summer and grey-brown in winter.
  Males and females live separate until the rut begins around the end of september and the males start to form a harem. The "burlen" (calling) during the rut is a spectacular happening and can be heard at great distances.
  After a pregnancy of eight months the calf is born. During two months they have a spotted fur.
  Females and calves form a herd.
  

  
• Fallow deer: Dama dama.

  Food: Leaves, tree buds, young sprigs, shrub, chestnuts, mushrooms, acorns.
  A full grown fallow deer can weigh 90 kilograms and has a height of about 90 cm. A female weighs 50 kilo at the most.
  Fallow deer can be found in several places in Holland. Starting with the hoge Veluwe.
  In general the summer fur is red-brown with white spots, the winterfur is darker and more greyish and has fewer white spots. The inside of the legs and the butt are white.
  In the group an older female is in charge. Fallow deer form greater groups than red deer.
  The male deer have a typical flat pair of antlers and often a spotted back.
  The muscles are well developed and the animal is very manoeuvrable.
  The rut starts in october and lasts for a month. In this period the male deer will "burl" (call), which is less noisy as with the red deer. Females are pregnant for 8 months.
  

  
• Roedeer: Capreolus capreolus.

  Most of the time roedeer will feed early in the morning, at noon and late in the evening.
  Roedeer don't eat anything and only take what is of the best quality. In wintertime they will accept beechnuts, mushrooms, sprigs and needles, acorn and will have a go at the crop, like beetroot, potatoes and rye.
  These elegant animals have a weight of 14 to 30 kilograms, the more fertile the soil, the more heavy the deer will be. In comparison with the red deer this is a small, lean deer. Its shoulderheight is about 70 cm. The goats (females) are a bit smaller than the bucks. Mostly the bucks will have antlers with up to six, rarely eight, ends. Only very seldom a goat will have a pair of smallish antlers.
  In november and december it is difficult to tell the bucks from the goats, because in this time the bucks will have thrown off their antlers, which are newly formed every year.
  Both sexes have a redbrown summerfur, and a more greyish brown coat in winter. Remarkable is the "mirror", the whitish butt. When in danger roedeer warn each other by flashing their mirror.
  In spring the old roebuck live a solitary live. Half july till half augustus is the time of the rut. The calves are born around the end of may, early june. Older goats can have two to three calves, which have a spotted furcoat during the first months, which is a perfect camouflage when lying in cover.
  Never touch a "lost" roe calve. Your smell would keep the mother away for ever. Instead, warn a gamekeeper or the police.
  Fortunately these graceful animals can be seen in verious places in our country. They can be found in the centre of the forest, or at the edge, wherever they find cover under the rich roof of leaves or in the shrub, or at open sites of fields and meadows.
  

  
• Mouflon: Ovis musimon.
  

  Originally the mouflon comes from Sardinia and Corsica.
  After they were introduced in the rest of Europe, the mouflon adapted succesfully and in Holland there are several hundreds of them living at the Hoge Veluwe and Het Loo. The mouflon is Europe's only wild sheep.
  Notice the light spot at their sides, which is called the saddle. In summertime the rams are brownish; snout, breast, belly and the inside of the legs are partly white. The winterfur is dark brown with black touches here and there. The ewes are brown the whole year round and have a bit of black and white at the legs. Occasionally a ewe has little horns. The horns of the rams are never shed and keep growing. The animals need a decent bit of space to look for food, which mainly consists of herbal plants and shrub. The rut takes place in november and december and the rams will fight for the ewes. Males will then run into each others and the 'headbanging" can be heard from far away.
  

  
• Wild boar: Sus scrofa.

  In Holland the wild boar was extinct till prince Hendrik bought some and release them on Het Loo. They are typical forest animals that live on the Hoge Veluwe and in the provinces of Limburg and Brabant.
  Wild boar are omnivorous, they will eat nearly anaything. Mostly the whole family goes searching for food together, then they can cause quite a bit of damage to crop. A wild boar can be reckognized by its upright canines, with which they can defend themselves pretty well. The sow has hookshaped canines, which are rarely protruding from the mouth. Their smell and hearing are very well developed, but their sight is not that good. A group of boar is called a "rotte" in Holland, and consists of sow, young males and one- or two year old young. Older males are living a solitary life until the rut which goes from november till january, then they connect with the rest of the group. The males have very tough fights amongst each other and they are not very gently lovers to the sows. After about four months the sow will give birth to 1-12 young (called frishling) in a shallow ditch.
  When the piglets are just born, they have a yellow/brown striped fur coat. After a few months the stripes have disappeared and the young will have the same brownish grey fur as their parents. Wild boar are plagued by all kinds of creepy crawly and therefor they often will take a mudd bath. The ticks and flees will stick in the dry mudd and can be chafed off against a tree.
  

  
  
• Fox: V. vulpes.

  Male: Fox. Female: Vixen.
  It is the largest predator in our country.
  Most of the time the fur is orange-brown on the back, greybrown on the underside and on the head and neck there is some white. It is a smart looking animal, especially in its thick wintercoat, orange-red breast, white point to the characteristic tail, black ears and black socks.
  Each fox has a certain area in which it hunts and rest. In daytime they keep a low profile most of the time, but when it gets dark he goes out hunting. They have a very variable menu: hares, rabbits, birds, eggs, mice, snails, insects but also berries. Anything really.
  The mating season starts around december - january. After a few weeks the vixen will give birth to her offspring in a self made hole. The number of cubs can vary from four to eight and are as small as a mole, greyish of colour, and blind. During a period of eight weeks, both parents will bring food. When the cubs are about five months old, they are on their own.
  

  
• Beaver: Castor fiber.

  The biggest rodent in Europe is the beaver.
  Until recently in Holland the beaver was extinct. In the end of 1988 beaver were re-introduced in the Biesbosch area because they belong in our country. They create a variation in the landscape and other animals and plants will benefit from that. The beaver is very well adapted to a life in and near the water. Its fur is dark brown, with long hairs and a woolly underfur that keeps the animal dry and warm. The beaver closes its ears and nose when diving, and can remain under water for quite a long period. Its flat tail is used as a rudder and can be smashed on the surface to warn other beaver for danger. The frontlegs and rearlegs are different. The frontlegs have 5 fingers with nails, the rearlegs are bigger and webbed. The large front teeth are used to gnaw trees. Beavers build a dam and burrow with those trees, branches and mudd. The entrance is hidden under water. The burrow has dry- and wet rooms and a ventilation shaft. Beavers are vegetarians and eat roots of waterplants and other vegetables like treebark. They are nocturnal.
  They leave trails behind when foraging and while making stores for the wintertime. Around the trees they gnaw you can find wood chips, footprints, marks of their flat tails and traces of branches that are dragged away. Fullgrown females get 2 to 4 cubs each year, which are born in the burrow. The cubs are raised not only by their parents, but also by their older brothers and sisters. When they reach the age of 3 the young will leave the nest to try to build a life of their own. The average lifespan of a beaver is from 8 to 15 years. They can have a size of 130 to 140 cm and weigh 15 to 35 kilograms.
  

  
• Badger: Meles meles.

  The badger belongs to the marten family.
  In 1997 the badger returned to the "achterhoek", an area in the eastern part of Holland, where it bacame extinct in the fifties by hunting and poaching. But also in the province of Drenthe and in the national parc the Loonse en Drunense Duinen badgers have been re-intoduced. But badgers still can not, like deer and wild boar, be kept by placing fences.
  Badgers can grow to a length of about 1 metre and can weigh between 12 and 15 kilos. They can reach an age of fifteen years or so. The black and white marks on the head and the black eyes are noticable. Its fur is greyish and stiff, but on the breast, belly and legs the fur is thinner and black. Brownish and yellowish specimens have been noted. Badgers are not often seen because they are nocturnal and their life is partly lived under the ground. There they dig large burrows with their strong claws, which have a net of corridors and rooms and can have more then one floor. Each room is stuffed with dry grass, ferns and moss which is replaced regularly for badgers are very clean animals. A burrow holds a complete family of badgers. The male and female stay together for their whole life. But in our country it is quite common that one of the two is killed on the road. Their average life expectancy is now only five years. In the night badgers will search for food: beetles, mice, fruit, plants, grain but especially for worms. They gather food in hedges, burns, ditches, fields and forest. Around february-march the females give birth to 2-3 cubs in a special delivery room. In the autumn, when the cubs are self supporting, they will leave the parental burrow to try to establish a burrow for themselves.

  
  
• Otter : Lutra lutra.

  Otters belong to the marten family.
  The otter used to be very common in Holland. But because of his valuable fur and by the damage to fishstock and nets, he was hunted so severely that the otter nearly became extinct. In the sixties there was a short increase in numbers, but by growing human population, traffic and the disappearing of its environment the otter got an increasingly hard time. In 1988 the last otter became a roadkill in the village Langweer in the province of Friesland.
  Otters are living in- and around the water. It mainly feeds itself with fish (they love eels) and invertebarates. They are most likely to be found in quiet areas with plenty of coverage along the banks. Because of strict protection their numbers in Europe are increasing.
  Click here for information about otters and the re-intoducing programme.

  
• Weasel : Mustela nivalis.
• Stoat : Mustela erminea.


Weasels belong to the marten family, like stoats, otters, the badger, the polecat, and the tree- and stone marten. Weasels and stoats can be found in nearly every landscape type. In Holland and Belgium the weasel is common. It measures between 13 and 24 centimetre (plus a tail of between 3 to 6 cm). Weasels are smaller than stoats, they are so small that they can hunt mice in their own pipes.
The back of the weasel is brown, their belly is white. They are active hunters and have a long, lean body and short legs. To scout their environment they can sit upright on their hind legs. When they move rapidly they often jumps with curved back. In general females are smaller than males.
Weasels will be around where ever rodents are common and they also prey on birds, eggs, young game and frogs. Carnivorous as they are, their teeth are sharp with large canines. They like to live in old burrows of rabbit, mice and rats and are active in daytime as well as during the night.
When food is plentyfull, a female can give birth twice a year. Females are pregnant for about six weeks, after which five to seven young are born.



The female stoat has a pregnancy of about ten weeks, after which she gives birth to four to eight naked and blind young.
In appearance the weasel and stoat look a lot alike, but the stoat is bigger and heavier. They can have a tail of 8 to 12 cm and weigh between 150 and 445 grams.
The stoats summer fur is brown-beige on the back and white or yellowish on the underside. North European stoats have a white wintercoat. In all cases the tail point is black. Like the weasel, the stoat is active during day and night and inhabits a variety of environments, but compared to the weasel, the stoat inhabits more wet terrain like swamps, moors, riverbanks etc. They are both very handy in controlling the number of mice, rats and rabbits. They also prey on birds or their eggs, and hares, who are killed, just like rabbits, with a bite in the neck.
Since the fourth century is the white winter fur in use for the official robes of Kings and Queens.





In Holland, three species of snakes are found: Ring-snake, Adder, Grey snake.

• Ringslang :Natrix natrix .

  The ring-snake is the biggest of the three species that are living in Holland, and can reach a length of 55 - 120 cm. Behind the head a yellow ring is visible, hence the name. Because ring-snakes are not poisonous, the snake can be caught with bare hands. When in danger, the snakes will show some remarkable behaviour. When handled, the snake shows its tongue, makes hissing noises, can make itself flat and "lay dead" out of self protection.
  Ring-snakes are good swimmers and like to be around rivers and lakes. In wintertime they prefer compost heaps, crevices in rocks and places like that, as long as it is near water. In summertime they like to be around rotting tree stumps. Females lay from 8 to 40 eggs in june. They are laid on a single,spot in a compost heap or spread around. When hatching, the young are 15 to 18 cm long and are instantly independent.
  Young ring-snakes eat newt larva, tadpoles etc. When grown up they hunt for toads, frogs, fish, newts and somtimes mice.

• Adder :Vipera berus .

  In contradiction to the ring-snake and grey snake, the adder is poisonous. Like the other snakes it will hibernate.
  In Holland, adders are to be found in the moors, sand grounds and in rough areas along woods. Females can grow to 80 cm, males get 65 cm. The colour varies from light brown to blackish, with a, sometimes difficult to see, dark zig zag pattern on the back. The head is broader in the back and is clearly distinguishable from the body. On the head often a dark, v-, y- or x shaped figure can be observed. Mating takes place in may. The adder gives birth to live yound, therefore females can be seen sun bathing quite often. The rest of the year they live a solitary life. The adder feeds itself with small animals, mainly mice, but also lizards, amphibies, worms and insects.

• Grey snake :Coronella austriaca .

  

  The grey snake has a length of about 75 cm. It is found on open areas, edges of woods, dry moors and clear cut areas where enough sunshine and hiding places can be found. The body is covered with scales which are placed in rows. A characteristic mark is the black-brown stripe on each side of its fairly small head. The eyes are small with round pupils.
  The bite is innocent, not poisonous and because of the small size of the teetch, not serious. When picked up, the snake makes hissing sounds and pushing movements with its head, it all is not such a big deal. After hibernation, the snake wakes up during the month of april and in may the mating takes place. The females are ovoviparous and give birth to 11-18 young, which are between 14 and 20 cm long. Soon the young will cast the skin, then they are really beautiful, steelblue and shiny.
  young snakes feed on small hazelworms and lizards. Adults hunt for mice, voles, frogs and sometimes even other snakes.