Snow makes neighbors of us all.

Love her escherinhetpaleis.nl/en/whats-on/...

When people ask, "Right before the Republic crumbled, who was doing the best 19th century literary pun stencils?" remember my name.

Absolute unit sighting at hollandmuseum.org in Holland, Michigan -- across the pond from @themerl.bsky.social and worth a visit. 🐑

Here’s an essay I wrote about trees. It’s also about climate narratives, loss, and Dutch women in early twentieth-century botany. But mostly it’s about 🌳🌳🌳 (and 🪲🪲🪲). With illustrations from @naturalis.bsky.social

I could, and shall, spend the whole day listening to these baby birds sing. #Birds #Koolmeesjes 🪶

Nogal intens, dit. Uit de Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden, 1926. 😷📚❤️ @ubleiden.bsky.social

My students and I are organising this event at @unileiden.bsky.social on May 17. Open to current students, prospective students, staff and alumni. For more info and to register, visit: www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/ex...

ce n'est pas une université

I have taken the resources that were in the budget and which you were probably saving for higher education Forgive me they were needed to feed the AI bubble and to dismantle the humanities

One of my favourite things in headlines are where you can see the muscle memory of legal training being applied to animals, buildings, train lines.

Nests.

I will never tired of photographs of people walking around carrying bird hides on their head. From the book, In de ban van vogels (a history of Dutch ornithology), by Karel Voous.

Pictures that explain things. Trees in Winter (back endpapers) Artist: SR Badmin, 1963

Contribution to the staff holiday party. #WOinActie #DoeHetNiet

Me: "Check out these cool sheep I saw on my bike to work today. Do you think they were there seeking warmth? Or maybe because it was dry compared to the grass?" Wife: "They were probably just charging."

Co-sign. I love this.

Lock of hair belonging to William IV, Prince of Orange (1711-1751), currently on show at the Mauritshuis as part of their 'Lost Museum' exhibit. Arresting to encounter- it stopped me in my tracks! Though it also looks suspiciously like a cat coughed up a hairball. www.mauritshuis.nl/nu-te-doen/t...

How does a bee see a landscape? On December 16, come hear artists Dirk-Jan Visser and Gus Drake talk about their project on analyzing and visualizing the different interests of more-than-human life in (decision-making about) the natural world. researchplatform.art/events/new-h...

For anyone just getting started here, I created a list to help you find some smart, hopeful, angry, beautiful writing about this watery plant-strewn rock floating in the middle of the cosmos we all happen to live on. Feel free to suggest additions! go.bsky.app/5Z65eat

20,000+ today on the Malieveld, protesting cuts to Dutch higher education. #WOinActie

Tot straks ☔️

🥲🦉

Vorige week, te midden van allerlei slecht nieuws in de wereld, nam ik een groep studenten mee naar de Leidse Hortus voor een pauze, wat geschiedenis en wat planten. Ik zorgde er natuurlijk voor dat ze de belangrijkste historische hoogtepunten leerden. resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=...

Amitav Ghosh speaking to university students in the Netherlands about the climate crisis. In response to the perennial “hope vs. despair” question, he pivoted out of that (Modernist, progress-bound) binary and spoke instead about: “What is my duty?”

Letters from England (1925) by Karel Čapek — the Czech writer known for giving the world the word “robot” — relates in vivacious style a tour he took around Britain, all adorned with the author's own sketches: publicdomainreview.org/collection/k...

Me: a quiet, infrequent Bluesky poster, sneaking into your feed via a Starter Pack.

"This is a woman! An American, afflicted according to the latest fashion." Limbursch Dagblad, 1925. resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=...

I'm sort of never not thinking about the "Codex Canadensis," an extraordinary visual imaginary of the people, animals, and plants encountered by Jesuit Louis Nicholas in New France c1660s www.aci-iac.ca/the-essay/ar... Images from commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Categor...

The brilliant @ailishlalor.bsky.social has written a gorgeous essay about animal charisma, animal vengeance, and The Hague's most famous missing elephant.🐘

"Floral clock," from Gilbert Anscieau's _Le Familier de la Nature_, 1946. 🌼🕰️🧡

Imagine your scientific name sounding as cool as Nycticorax nycticorax. In English, they call you not just the Night Heron, but even the Black-Crowned one! YOU ARE A SUPERVILLAIN! And then Dutch just call you: "kwak". KWAK. And you don't even quack...🦉🪶

A northern lapwing (kievit) chilling under a nest-protector in Friesland in the Netherlands. From Het Vogeljaar, April 1974. 🪶

Here is the Swiss-Dutch photographer Adolphe Burdet setting up his bird hide for filming and then hanging out with a bunch of owls, in 1937. Voiceover by Jac. P. Thijsse. More on Burdet: filmdatabase.eyefilm.nl/en/collectio... 🪶

Mark your calendars for the Moving Animals Festival, February 2, @museumnaturalis! For the provisional line-up, see: www.naturalis.nl/en/agenda/mo...

Thank you, @ark-rewildingnl.bsky.social, for treating my students to a lovely excursion on the rewilded island of Brienenoord in Rotterdam. Tidal channels, highland cattle, beavers, and even some sunshine in an otherwise rainy week. Incredible to see so much wild nature in an urban area.

Extinction Rebellion organiseert een fietser-die-in op een historische plek: midden jaren 1970 vond eenzelfde actie van actiecomité Stop de Kindermoord plaats op dezelfde plek. Door dit soort acties werd Nederland een fietsvriendelijk land en daalde het aantal verkeersongelukken.

Het debat gaat verder in Leiden, sinds de eerste stappen vorig jaar en in september... www.universiteitleiden.nl/nieuws/2023/...

In de Hongerwinter zijn op grote schaal de bomen in Den Haag gekapt. Tijdens de Boomplantdagen in 1945 hielpen Haagse schoolkinderen bij het planten van nieuwe bomen in de Scheveningse Bosjes. Vanaf 5 november 1945 werden daar 16 dagen lang elke dag 1000 nieuwe boompjes geplant.

"We all need a focal point, a third place, a public space outside home and work where we can relax, a place sacred to the communities of which we wish to be a part." Lovely piece, this, kindling my nostalgia for Widener. (I wish Leiden had more libraries where you can wander the stacks!)

"Housewives are cooped up all day, so no wonder they'd like a pretty view -- why not treat yours to this enormous mail-order painting of a wooded landscape?" From the ANWB (Royal Dutch Touring Club) magazine, November 1947.

40 jaar geleden, op 29 oktober 1983 vond in Den Haag de demonstratie tegen de plaatsing van kruisraketten plaats. Het was met meer dan 500.000 deelnemers de grootste demonstratie die ooit in Nederland is gehouden. De vele demonstranten verzamelden zich op het Malieveld en het Zuiderpark.1)

On October 27, the Environmental Humanities group at Leiden University will host marine biologist Dr. Cornelia E. Nauen, speaking on small-scale fishing communities and collaborations between natural scientists, artists, and activists. Join us! 🐟💙🌊 www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/20...

“Sixty-seven metres of hand embroidery relating the saga of oil, global societal change, and energy transition” — in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry. By the artist Sandra M. Sawatzky. So good. www.theblackgoldtapestry.com

I love the design of this 1964 Dutch tree identification guide. And how it gives the uses of wood, alongside the other details.

Well played.

Obsessed with the illustrations in mid-century reports from the national Dutch bird protection organization (Nederlandsche Vereniging tot Bescherming van Vogels). From the hand of Dr. Anna Roes Vollgraff, archeologist and illustrator.