April 19, 2015

Dutch student named Global Entrepreneur of the Year

Filed under: Animals,Design by Orangemaster @ 8:14 pm

This week Dutch student Steinar Henskes of the VU University Amsterdam, owner of the Bird Control Group, won Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year, an event held in Washington, D.C. Up against 2,000 students from 38 countries, Henskes took home a cool USD 20,000 (about € 18,500) in prize money.

Bird Control Group provides solutions to keep birds at a safe distance from commercial activities using animal-safe lasers. Founded in 2012, the company operates in 52 countries around the globe including major airports like Schiphol and London Airport. “The products are recognised by the World Wildlife Fund for their innovation, effectiveness and animal friendliness.”

(Link: www.marketwired.com, photo of a lightbulb by Emil Kabanov, some rights reserved)

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March 2, 2015

Scaring off seagulls with drones in Haarlem

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 11:29 am

After the world found out about an owl terrorising the city of Pumerend and sending people to hospital, the city of Haarlem has decided to attack its annual seagull problem with drones, based on an American idea. Haarlem is a few kilometres from the North Sea, while Amsterdam is further away and seems more overrun by pigeons.

Forget hanging devices that make falcon noises to scare seagulls off. With a drone you can replace the camera part with the noisy device and scare the seagulls out of their nests, as long as it’s not too windy for the drones. Seagulls are a protected bird type, so scaring them away is the city’s best bet for now.

(Link: www.rtvnh.nl, Photo of Drone by Karen Axelrad, some rights reserved)

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February 12, 2015

Birdwatchers spot Flamingos in Amsterdam

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 10:57 am

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Birdwatchers are thrilled to have spotted a flock of five flamingos in Amsterdam, which is a rare sight. They’re not from a zoo, as they’ve not been tagged. They’ve probably come from southern Europe and are staying as they can find food easily. The birds should stay about three years. German flamingos are often seen in the Netherlands, but are tagged and usually go back home.

Cue Miami Vice opening sequence (video).

(Link: www.welingelichtekringen.nl, Photo of Flamingos in a French zoo by Tambako the Jaguar, some rights reserved)

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December 20, 2014

Netherlands taxes barnacle geese’s immune system

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 12:19 pm

Barnacle-Goose

Dutch scientists have suggested an explanation for why Dutch barnacle geese have a less active immune system once they’ve migrated to Spitsbergen, Norway than when they winter in the Netherlands. “The birds on Spitsbergen appear to invest much less energy in their immune systems, particularly general resistance to disease. Researchers suspect that this might be because there are far fewer pathogens [like bird flu] in the North than here in the Netherlands.”

With their immune systems taxed less, the geese have more energy available to reproduce and change feathers, which the Dutch birds don’t. This means that the geese appear able to adjust their immune systems according to the risk of catching a disease.

(Links: www.kijkmagazine.nl, phys.org, Photo of barnacle goose by Andreas Trepte, some rights reserved)

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May 20, 2014

Find out what bird it is using a bird website

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 12:01 pm

Ornithologist Gerard Brinkman of Castricum, North Holland, has set up a website to help people in the Netherlands find out what kind of bird they saw but don’t know its name. The website, ‘welke vogel is dit’ (‘what bird is this’) helps people identify a bird in three steps. First, what does it look like, then what is its main colour and possible group, then from a list you get to see what could be your bird. Yes it’s in Dutch, so brush up on that as well while you’re at it.

The online bird watching with webcams from 2010 is still online.

(Link: www.rtvnh.nl, Photo of Iago Sparrow by Hans Zwitzer, some rights reserved)

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May 18, 2013

Famous bird snuffs it at the art fair

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 9:25 am

Visitors of the KunstRAI art fair in Amsterdam are confronted with an art work by Bart Jansen even before they enter the building. The corpse of a giant blue bird, the famous brainchild of American puppeteer Jim Henson (and yellow in its native country), is slowly passing the last of its warmth to the cold, grey pavers.

The artist says on a nearby sign: “These days a national park only seems to amount to something in the public eye if it is being threatened. The next step is to make the reservation accessible for recreation. This requires a motorway. In this work, the only bird in the world that was deemed safe, has just fallen by the way of an unstoppable civilisation.”

Click the ‘read more’ link to end your childhood.
(more…)

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January 18, 2013

Bird house built into roof tile

Filed under: Animals,Design by Orangemaster @ 9:57 am

In an effort to help solve the shrinking bird population in urban areas, Dutch designer Klaas Kuiken collaborated with the Netherlands Society for Protection of Birds (Vogelbescherming) to create the Birdhouse Roof Tile.

The ‘Birdhouse Roof Tile’ was designed to provide more nesting places for birds in the city. Since birds often look to nest within the roofs of houses, Kuiken attached an archetypal birdhouse onto a standard roof tile.

(Link: enpundit.com, Photo by Klaas Kuiken)

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August 20, 2012

Jackdaw rules Dutch cities

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 11:22 am

The jackdaw (kauw in Dutch) is the most common city bird in the Netherlands, AD reports.

A census held by Sovon shows that of the 375,000 birds counted, 49,000 are jackdaws. Other popular city birds are the blackbird, the wood pigeon, the sparrow and the swift.

The jackdaw population has increased by 15% since 2006, but is only slowly on the rise. In the same timeframe, the Canada Goose has seen an increase of 372%, the stork of 201% and the gadwall of 146%. These are, however, relatively rare birds.

Birds that are rapidly disappearing from cities include the starling (obviously nobody counted birds in front of my favourite seafood store in Amsterdam neighbourhood De Pijp for this one), the robin and the great cormorant, my favourite. Because cormorants need to dive deep for fish, they allow their feathers to get wet. When they sit on lamp posts and in trees, spreading their wings to dry, they look like angels watching over the living.

In Europe, jackdaws are the smallest of the ‘true crows’. You can tell them apart from crows because jackdaws have a shiny, silverish head. They can be domesticated, and indeed we kept one when I was a kid, although keeping them is no longer legal these days. Ours was called Jacky, obviously!

(Photo by Kalle Gustafsson, some rights reserved)

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March 18, 2011

Starlings above Utrecht, three takes

Filed under: Animals,Nature by Orangemaster @ 1:56 pm

Ah yes, spring is coming and the starlings know this.

This video is nice and homemade:

This video felt the need to use music and is from afar:

This video has music and shows the starlings in smaller groups:

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March 14, 2011

Eight nest cams in the Netherlands

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 10:53 am

Vogelbescherming Nederland (the Dutch bird protection society) has set up web cams in and near 8 different bird nests. This spring you can watch two types of owl, a pair of storks, barn swallows, kingfishers, nuthatches, a pair of herons and a couple of peregrine falcons in the privacy of their homes while they try and raise their kids.

Each nest sports several cameras. You can also watch the favourite clips of the site’s moderators. Four of the bird types are on the red list, which means the birds are endangered.

Link: Holly Moors.

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