The Common Blue is a typical butterfly of grasslands. The roughs of the presidents nine, for example those of Hole 2, seem to be a perfect habitat for these insects. The caterpillars feed on different kinds of clover, which appear abundantly in these roughs. The butterflies typically rest in groups together, with often more than a hundred individuals!

The pale-colored Barn Owl with its heart-shaped face hunts at night searching for rodents like voles and shrews. Besides their excellent eyesight and hearing, they can fly without making any noise! With a bit of luck one can see a Barn Owl flying just above the ground in the evening. These owls look for food in open areas, like the fields next to the golf, but also on the rough zones on the president’s nine!

The Drug Eyebright is a rare plant species! It grows on poor, unfertilized soil in sunny open places. The roughs on the 3rd ^& 4th ^Holes appear as a good place for this species. The plant is a hemi-parasite, and takes water and salts from grasses. In this way grass growth is suppressed and other plant species get a chance to grow. Isn’t naturally beautiful?

The Greater Yellow-Rattle grows in humid grasslands which are moderately rich in nutrients, living a semi-parasitic life by feeding off the roots of nearby grasses. It can be found in the roughs near 5 ^th Hole, but also around the 2 ^nd and 3 ^rd Holes. The plant owes its name to the seeds which rattle inside the seed capsule when the plant gets moved by the wind. In Flanders, the greater yellow-rattle is not often seen outside nature reserves.

The Common Pochard is not a common breeding bird in Belgium, although in wintertime it can locally be a very common. Males have a red brown head with red eyes, a black chest and a gray body, while the females are brown. They dive a lot in order to find water animals and parts of aquatic plants in the water. The duck isn’t seen lot of the golf terrain, but when lucky one might see a bird in the pond alongside the 6^th Hole. You can find them all year long, but especially in autumn, wintertime and early spring.

The Ragged-Robbin is species of a wet grasslands on moderately rich soil. The use of fertilizers and the lowering of groundwater levels of hayfields are leading to a current decline of this species. It appears abundantly in the roughs of the 7^th Hole, but can alsi be found in roughs of the 3^rd and 5^th Holes, where the rough is quite wet. The name in Latin is derived from the spit on an insect called the meadow froghopper. This spit is called ‘cuckoo spit’ and can sometimes be found on the stems of the plant.

The beautiful Hawk-Moth can have a wingspan of about 6 cm! Its giant caterpillars feed on plants like hairy willow herb, fireweed and primrose, which are well represented on the golf domain, for example alongside the ditch to the left of the 8^th Hole. At dawn and night the Elephant Hawk-Moths fly to forage on honeysuckle and other plants with tubular flowers. They do this like hummingbirds: during flight. A trick to see it is to attract them with UV light.

In the rough alongside the golf courses, many ladybugs can be found, such as the seven-spot ladybird. The number of spots on the back doesnit say anything about age, it is just a species specific characteristics. They are known for eating lots of aphids, and for that they are loved by gardeners. The seven-spot ladybird is a big ladybug, which usually occurs in sunny places.