Dutch bird hobbyists, who keep chickens, geese and ducks as pets, are giving their birds to local petting zoos and children’s farms out of fear of bird flu. At farms and petting zoos in cities like the Hague, Apeldoorn and Leideschendam, the pet birds have been tossed into the yard by their owners!

Dutch cars will get a sticker that says how much they pollute. Towns will be able to use this information to change their parking policies; dirtier cars will pay more. More »

Three weeks after Coca-Cola introduced new bottles here in the Netherlands, the soft drink giant raised prices of bottles this week with 40%, while many consumers have complained about the flimsiness of the new one-time-use bottles. More »

Last Saturday a team of bicyclers were able to cross the city of Rotterdam faster than an auto making the same journey. A group of travelers using public transport also participated; they came in last. The teams traveled the city from west to east and the bikers arrived at the finish two minutes faster than the car. The team using public transport arrived about a half hour later. More »

Yesterday we visited our friends Mike and Tina in the small town of Werne in the Münsterland area in Germany, where we had a nice tour of the historic center. More »

This year the Dutch organization for mammal study and protection (VZZ) placed twelve ‘bunkers’ in the natural area Slot Haamstede in the province Zeeland to provide winter shelters for bats. Five bunkers which were placed there earlier are now filled with dozens of bats. The twelve new bat shelters also have some new residents overwintering there, and the VZZ expects the number of bats in all of the bunkers to increase in coming years. In total there are 45 bat shelters at Slot Haamstede, and 26 are hosting bats this winter. More »

Shopkeepers outside the center of Leiden protested against a city plan to allow shops in all of Leiden to open their stores to customers on Sundays. Until now this was only allowed in the city center. More »

Three years after the start of the U.S.-oriented news.google.com, Google launched a Dutch version of their news portal on 26 January. Surprisingly, this has upset Dutch newspapers, who believe that Google should have asked them for permission to index their articles. More »

Today we visited the Dutch Ice Sculpture Festival here in Leiden. The theme is the artist Rembrandt van Rijn. In 2006 Leiden celebrates the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt’s birth with different museum exhibits, festival events and other special expositions. The Ice Sculpture Festival features statues and scenes made of ice and snow, taken from the painter’s works and life. More »

Last week science fiction writer Ray Bradbury challenged the city of Los Angeles to build monorails to relieve the congested freeways; sometime in the next five years, he wrote, all traffic across L.A. will freeze. More »