Peregine falcons born on Brussels cathedral webcam

This video from 17 April 2013 shows the female peregrine falcon in the nest on Brussels cathedral feeding her chicks for the first time.

From the Falcons for everyone site in Belgium:

Peregrines on the cathedral 2013

Welcome to the summit of the St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral in the heart of Brussels!

It is the tenth year in a row that a pair of Peregrine falcons, the fastest bird in the World, breeds on the tower of this 1000 year old cathedral. Almost exterminated from Europe and North America not long ago, this splendid bird of prey breeds now in the center of a city where a million inhabitants live. This year, the female has layed 5 eggs since early March.

In order to allow you to observe live and in detail the spectacle of the hatching, the chicks growing up and finally the juvenile Peregrines first flight, we have installed a system of cameras connected in streaming to this website. Do you want to learn more on the natural history of this fascinating raptor? Go to the blog! Would you like to see them ‘in the flesh’? Join us at the Observation Post that wil be installed at the cathedral parvis from 2 April until 26 May 2013! We will show you the falcons through a powerful telescope.

Welcome to the website of the Brussels peregrines!

Also from this site:

17 April Wednesday

Yesterday was calm. Since the first cries of the chicks on Monday nothing new had happened.

But at 22:04:20 the female stood up slightly and looked attentively beneath her. It was pretty hard to see what exactly drew her attention. Five seconds later she turned to the camera and … a falcon hatched from his egg! Mother falcon helped her young; she encouraged it, and he came out of the egg. His plumage was completely soaked; the female leaned against him to protect him from the cold and to further incubate the four other eggs. The first chick of 2013 was born! The 25th chick for this female.

This morning a second and a third falcon hatched also.

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• Cathedral falcon lays first 2013 egg (bbc.co.uk)
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• New Live Webcam Added to Watch Peregrine Falcons (nbc15.com)
• Webcams set up to view peregrine falcon nests (wisn.com)
• Mobile coverage in Southampton knocked out by peregrine falcon (wired.co.uk)
• Nesting Peregrine Falcon hits Vodafone mobile coverage in Southampton (independent.co.uk)

Leuven in Belgium, botanical garden again

Friday, 8 March 2013.

My last full day in Leuven, Belgium.

After yesterday, again to the botanical garden, like on the first day.

This video about medieval Low Countries music was recorded in the Leuven botanical garden.

It says about itself:

You are listening to: “De plus souvent” (Anonymous), “Vos, quid admiramini virginem/Gratissima virginis/Gaude gloriosa” by Philippus de Vitry and “Par maintes foys” by Jean Vaillant; 3 pieces of 14th century music recorded on Capilla Flamenca‘ s latest cd EN UN GARDIN. The four seasons of ars nova. …

Thanks to their many qualities, the works on this cd show that at the end of the 14th century, the music of the Low Countries, which historically extended from the north of Holland across the province of Liège to what is now northern France, contains the germ of all the elements that were to form the basis of the 15th century’s remarkable musical flowering.

The numerous foundations in the principal churches and the formation of choir schools enabled composers and performers to make the Low Countries along the North Sea coast into a fertile source of musicians for the whole of Europe.

The path to European polyphony was thrown open, leading ultimately to its supreme manifestation in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Video recorded June 2009.

On 8 March in the botanical garden, I did not hear medieval music, but a dunnock singing.

At one of the two sources, a male blackbird drinking.

In a hothouse Cyathea australis, a tree fern from Australia.

Outside, a Gingko biloba in bonsai size. Less than 50 centimeter, while gingkos can get scores of meters high.

A blue tit sings.

Related articles

• Leuven in Belgium, botany, birds and bees (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Leuven in Belgium, old buildings and art (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• A historic university town – Leuven, Belgium (journeyaroundtheglobe.com)
• Jackdaws, parakeets, blackbirds at the botanical garden (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Dining in Leuven (tamarindandthyme.wordpress.com)
• A City Shaped (humancityproject.wordpress.com)

Leuven in Belgium, old buildings and art

Thursday, 7 March 2013.

After yesterday, today to the Groot Begijnhof in Leuven, Belgium.

The Groot Begijnhof (Grand Béguinage in French) is a well-preserved and completely restored historical quarter of a dozen streets in the city center of Leuven.

Two branches of the Dijle river cross it, bridged by three bridges.

Near a lawn, great tit and blackbird.

The Jesuit order played a role in Leuven history. So, in the Groot Begijnhof, there is this small statue of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of that order.

Back at a Dijle bridge, domestic pigeons. Also, Egyptian geese flying overhead.

Then, after the Groot Begijnhof, on to the M-Museum Leuven.

This video says about itself:

A small fragment of a musical performance in the M-Museum, in Leuven, Belgium.

This museum has a big art collection, from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. But they don’t exhibit all of that permanently; like many other museums.

When you enter, you see religious sculptures. One from the twelfth century, one from the fourteenth century. Most are from the sixteenth century, a “golden age” for the Low Countries, especially the southern provinces. However, the museum does not show much from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Then, the Habsburg rulers had managed to oppress the sixteenth century revolt against King Philip II of Spain: not in the north, which went on to have its Golden Age in the seventeenth century and would become the Netherlands; in the south, which later became Belgium. Though early in the seventeenth century, Rubens and others still made Antwerp a center of art, Leuven and many other southern Low Countries areas became backwaters economically and artistically under the Spanish and Austrian Habsburg monarchs.

The museum does have a lot of nineteenth century objects. Many of them are by Constantin Meunier (12 April 1831 – 4 April 1905). Though born in a Brussels working class neighbourhood, Meunier worked in Leuven at his painting and sculpture for quite some time.

A major theme in Meunier’s work is the Belgian working class, their exploitation and their bad situation at work. His style is called “social realism”.

Constantin Meunier made this sculpture after a fire in a coal mine in 1887. It killed 120 miners. The sculpture depicts a mother, recognizing the dead body of her son among the victims of the disaster.

Leuven in Belgium, botany, birds and bees

Wednesday, 6 March 2013.

To Leuven, an ancient Belgian university city.

It has many attractions, from the Middle Ages and later.

These include the oldest botanical garden in Belgium, founded in 1738: the Hortus Botanicus Lovaniensis.

When we went there, it was sunny weather, with higher temperatures than later in March.

Sounds of nuthatch, great tit, blue tit and chaffinch.

And a canary, but it is in a cage.

Bee hives. A “hotel” for solitary bees and other insects.

And chickens. They are of the “Brakelhoen” (Braekel) race, the only surviving Flemish Belgian race.

This is a Braekel video.

Crocus flowers. They attract honeybees, probably the bees’ first day on flowers this year.

Leuven university is about 150 years older than the one in Leiden. However, the botanical garden is some 150 years later than the garden in Leiden; and smaller. Then, again, in Leiden, there is only source of a brook flowing to the big pond. Here, there are two sources and two brooks.

In the pond, mallard ducks and carp, like often in Leiden.

In Leuven, there is also the Sint-Donatuspark or city park. It includes remains of the 12th century city wall. A nuthatch was looking for food between the stones of that old wall. Also in the park: blackbird, chaffinch.

In the evening, this photo of the Martelarenplein (Martyrs’ Square) near Leuven railway station.

What would tomorrow in Leuven bring for us?

Related articles

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Anti-austerity demonstration in Brussels

This video says about itself:

European trade union rally – Speech by Bernadette Ségol, ETUC General Secretary

14 March 2013 — 15,000 people gathered in Brussels to say no to austerity and yes to jobs.

“#140313Youth – Together for a better future: No to austerity! Yes to jobs for young people!” European trade union action.

More info: http://www.etuc.org/a/10843

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Workers protest in Brussels

Thursday 14 March 2013

Thousands of workers protest in Brussels today to demand that EU leaders bring an end to austerity measures and instead focus on boosting growth and reducing unemployment.

The demonstration vented frustration over years of EU-imposed austerity that unions and economists say is worsening the recession and driving more people into unemployment and poverty.

“The policies that have been put in place have failed,” said European Trade Union Confederation general secretary Bernadette Segol.

“We see that the efforts have been put on the shoulders of workers.”

Workers from steel giant ArcelorMittal and construction equipment maker Caterpillar joined the protest to highlight recent moves to cut the size of their workforces.

The European Court of Justice ruled today that property repossession laws in Spain that have led to hundreds of thousands of evictions violate EU consumer protection laws: here.

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Young minke whale killed by plastic

Translated from Ecomare museum, on Texel island in the Netherlands; about Belgium:

Whale killed by plastic – 03.13.13

A young Minke whale washed ashore last weekend on the beach of Nieuwpoort. It was a male, 3.5 meter long and 400 kilogram, so a small one. The whale was still so fresh that researchers believe that the young animal died on the beach. The researchers also discovered why the whale got into trouble ….. there was 400 grams of plastic bags in its stomach.

Constipated

The minke whale was brought for examination to the University of Liège, where veterinarian Thierry Jauniaux went in search of the cause of death. The plastic bags soon gave him a clue. The plastic caused an almost complete obstruction of the digestive tract, causing the animal to be no longer able to feed; finally, starvation killed it. The stranded minke whale was remarkably thin.

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Minke whale beaches in Belgium

This video is called Swimming with Dwarf Minke Whales (underwater footage).

Translated from Belga news agency today:

Minke whale washed up on the beach of Nieuwpoort

11:23 Early Sunday morning walkers found a beached minke whale on the beach of Nieuwpoort. This is confirmed by the fire brigade of the coastal town.

“It is a minke whale of about 3.5 meters. The animal weighs 400 kilogram. The marine mammal was emaciated, but still intact,” said the fire brigade.

It’s probably a young animal, because adult minke whales can be up to ten meters, while newborns already are about 2.5 meters long. The minke whale is part of the family of baleen whales. “So it is probably a young individual which has strayed,” said the fire brigade.

The dead whale was brought to Gent university for research.

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• Whaling fleet ‘departs’ with record-low haul: Sea Shepherd (japantimes.co.jp)
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Flemish racists celebrate Hitler’s birthday in parliament

This video says about itself:

The Hidden Face Of The Vlaams Belang (1/8)

Nov 18, 2007

A Belgian documentary on the Flemish far-right party Vlaams Belang and its disturbing past and present.

Translated from an interview by Michael Lescroart with Bart Debie, ex-police commissioner and ex-Member of Parliament of the extreme Right political party Vlaams Belang; in the (conservative) Belgian daily Gazet van Antwerpen, paper edition, 9 March 2013:

“On Hitler‘s birthday, Vlaams Belang representatives celebrate in the parliament’s restaurant”

Yes, there are people in Vlaams Belang with hardline nazi sympathies. That includes members of parliament. After they had some drinks, I have seen them make the Hitler salute.

I have also filmed them doing that. …

Eg, on Hitler’s birthday it was their custom to have a little party in the restaurant of the Flemish parliament. Then, they drank to the health of “uncle Marcel”. A code name for the Führer. I have always really had problems with this.

See also here.

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Unknown Van Dyck painting discovered

From the BBC:

9 March 2013 Last updated at 01:31 GMT

Van Dyck painting ‘found online’

A previously unknown painting by 17th Century master Van Dyck has been identified after being spotted online.

The portrait was previously thought to have been a copy and was in storage at the Bowes Museum in County Durham.

But it was photographed for a project to put all of the UK’s oil paintings on the BBC Your Paintings website, where it was seen by an art historian.

After an investigation by BBC Two’s Culture Show, it has been verified by Van Dyck expert Dr Christopher Brown.

Dr Brown, director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, told The Culture Show that it was “a substantial discovery”.

“It’s quite clear that this is a late English period Van Dyck,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. This absolutely is Van Dyck at his best.”

Anthony Van Dyck, one of the finest portrait painters of the 17th Century, was born in Antwerp and became court artist for King Charles I in London in 1632.

The portrait depicts Olivia Boteler Porter, lady-in-waiting to Charles I’s wife Henrietta Maria.

The painting, which was not thought to be important and in a bad condition, was covered in layers of dirt and varnish and was not on display at the Bowes Museum.

But it was photographed as part of the Public Catalogue Foundation‘s mission to document every oil painting in public ownership and added to the BBC’s Your Paintings website, where it was spotted by art historian and dealer Dr Bendor Grosvenor.

“Although as part of our national heritage values are irrelevant, for insurance purposes it should now be valued at anything up to £1m,” Dr Grosvenor said.

“Had it appeared at auction as a copy, and in its dirty state, it would probably only have been estimated at about £3,000-5,000.”

Your Paintings: A Culture Show Special will be broadcast on BBC Two at 18.30 GMT and can be seen on the BBC iPlayer for a week after transmission.

See also here.

Related articles

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Belgian ‘plastic soup’ pollution solution?

This video says about itself:

These photographs of albatross chicks were made in September 2009 on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

~Chris Jordan

October 2009

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Ecover to turn sea plastic into bottles in pioneering recycling scheme

Green cleaning brand claims plastic trawled from the sea can be used to create fully sustainable and recyclable packaging

• Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 March 2013 11.13 GMT
• Jump to comments (93)

Plastic bottles and other rubbish washed up by the tide on a beach, Isle of Man. Ecover will use plastic waste trawled from the sea to deliver what it claims will be the first ever fully sustainable and recyclable plastic. Photograph: Alamy

Ecover, the green cleaning brand, said on Thursday it will use plastic waste retrieved from the sea to create an entirely new type of sustainable and recyclable plastic bottle.

The Belgian company is working with plastic manufacturer Logoplaste to combine plastic trawled from the sea with a plastic made from sugar cane (‘Plant-astic’) and recycled plastic, in what it is calling a world-first for packaging. Products made from the packaging will go on sale next year.

But the company was unable to give details of how much plastic would be retrieved or what percentage of “sea plastic” would be used in the packaging.

Ecover chief executive, Philip Malmberg, said: “We won’t have a definitive figure on the amount we will retrieve we are just hoping to get as much as is possible and give fishermen an incentive to join the initiative and help clean the seas. We want to get the sea waste in as much of our packaging as possible – it will always depend on the amount and quality of the plastic they have managed to fish.”

Philip Malmberg, Ecover’s CEO, talks to Guardian Environment Network partnerRTCC about plastic soup, the recession and ditching fossil fuels

According to the Marine Conservation Society, plastic debris accounts for almost 60% of all litter found on UK beaches, while much of it ends up in the sea. The scale of the problem was highlighted in a recent studyby scientists who found a sperm whale that died off the coast of Spain last year had a stomach full of flowerpots, hosepipe and nearly 30 square metres of plastic greenhouse covers.

Ecover was set up in 1981 and the UK is now one of its biggest markets, generating some 40% of sales. The company said it would work with the industry-led Waste Free Oceans initiative and the UK recycling plant Closed Loop to recruit fishing communities working in the British waters off the North Sea to collect plastic.

Boats outfitted with special equipment will be able to collect between two and eight tonnes of waste per trawl for cleaning and recycling, while other fishermen will collect plastic debris mixed with by-catch and deposit it at special collection points. The sorted waste will then be sent to Closed Loop Recycling’s plant in Dagenham, east London, where it will be processed and turned into the plastic for the new bottles.

Trials have already begun on the exact mix of the three plastics that will allow the brand to deliver what it claims will be the first ever fully sustainable and recyclable plastic.

Malmberg added: “Sustainability is a never-ending journey. Solve one problem or tackle one issue and it simply leaves you free to solve the next. Our focus on continual innovation means that we are always pushing boundaries. As manufacturers we’ve got to take responsibility for sustainability very seriously – to take real action on climate change and the damage done by our over-reliance on fossil fuels, creating ‘green’ products that deliver more than a nod to sustainability.”

Ecover’s move has the backing of the Environment Agency, although it is not providing any funding or subsidy to help retrieve the plastic debris. The company said it would incur the costs of the exercise and pledged not to pass it on to consumers via any price increases.

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