Kees Moeliker, our European bureau chief — and the bird curator at the Natural History Museum Rotterdam — reports:
A building known worldwide as a bird killer – the new wing of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam, the Netherlands – and the site of the first scientifically documented case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck, has its own scare crow: a huge 6 metre high, metal black crow [Corvus corone] made by the Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman.
The fine piece of art was placed next to the glass facade. The museum’s hopes the number of birds that die in collision with the building will reduce. Our continuous close-to-hand source of dead birds may be history, but I see new research opportunities in studying changes in bird behavour around the museum now the huge black crow has taken such a dominant position. The museum’s website has some nice pictures of the scare crow.
