Konik horses from Oostvaardersplassen -photo impression

Last weekend I had a chance to visit lovely Oostvaardersplassen. It is a Nature Reserve Park  in The Netherlands in province Flevoland. The park is inhabited by many interesting animals, amazing diversity of bird species, for example white tailed sea eagles and European Spoonbills,  and also number of big mammals including a herd of Konik horses. They live here in semi wild conditions. They are not afraid of humans so it's relatively easy to come quite close to them and photograph. As I learned later - this herd of Koniks is one of the first introduced to the nature parks outside Poland. 

They behaved very naturally and they seemed to ignore humans almost completely. It was really inspiring for me, I love observing natural behaviour of horses for example mutual grooming or playful "fights". I was also amazed by the diversity of shades within the grullo colour. Konik horses cannot be bay dun - bay gene do not occur in the breed, so even the ones that appear more "beige" in shade must be actually sun bleached grullos.

For me it was really heart warming to see familiar Konik horses. The breed originally comes from Poland, they were bred to resemble real Tarpans. In Poland koniks are sometimes used as working horses especially as riding ponies for kids or light adults. I knew more than few working koniks and they are really hard to forget - each one had amazing personality, they are so smart and extravert it's almost possible to hear them talking or laughing at you! ;D