Winner of the North Sea Film Festival 2012

The Grevelingen Lake is located in the Dutch Delta. It is a dammed lake with a lock to the North Sea. The water in the Grevelingen Lake is salty, and that only freezes under extreme conditions. In the winter of 2012, this happened again for years. While the rhythm of nature completely stopped on land, under the water’s surface, the shorthorn sculpin was very busy taking care of its offspring.

The hardships of the circumstances and dozens of dives resulted in this beautiful short documentary, in which the shorthorn sculpin (some kind of sea scorpion) takes care of two nests: that of itself – a shorthorn sculpin (Myoxocephalus scorpius) – and that of a different species – a long-spined bullhead (Taurulus bubalis). He pushes oxygen-rich water over the eggs and keeps crabs and lobsters nearby. The eggs are minuscule, no bigger than a pinhead, and remarkably colourful in the colourless environment. Because the water temperature of only a few degrees, the eggs develop slowly into small fish, eventually crawling out of their eggs.