The mudflats near Uithuizen: a winding channel through a golden salt marsh landscape.

by Marga Vroom

This photograph captures the serene and almost otherworldly beauty of the mudflats at Uithuizen, in the far north of the province of Groningen. What immediately catches the eye is the spectacular colour palette of the salt marshes and the narrow channel of water winding its way through the layered colours. In late summer and early autumn, this landscape beyond the dykes undergoes a transformation. The vast fields of glasswort then change from fresh green to a deep, fiery rust-red colour. This red glow marks the glasswort’s survival strategy. As one of the few plants that thrive on the salty transition between land and sea, the plant stores salt in its fleshy stems. As the season progresses, the plant becomes saturated, causing the characteristic red colour – a final colourful farewell before winter sets in.

In the background, we see the clean lines of the wattle and daub dams, the distinctive wooden structures designed to trap silt and allow the land to reclaim itself. Beyond them, the Wadden Sea stretches to the horizon, beneath the vast Groningen sky. The composition emphasises the vast horizontal layering of this UNESCO World Heritage Site: the green foreground, the fiery red central strip and the hazy, grey-white transition to the water. It is an image of absolute tranquillity, in which the dynamics of ebb and flow and the changing seasons come together in a subtle way.