Next weekend, on 25 and 26 October, found throughout the country counts instead of starlings. Over a hundred volunteers to count the number of known sleeping starlings in a 'cloud of starlings. It is also an innovative counting method with pictures tested because of how accurate is the human eye and sometimes a hundred thousand starlings sitting in a swarm? The telactiviteit takes place in the framework of the Year of the Starling.
Fewer and fewer starlings
Everyone knows the spectacular flocks of starlings that can be seen in the autumn and winter all over our country. Starlings use joint sleeps, where it sometimes collect hundreds of thousands of birds. It seems that the huge swarms occur less frequently and that the groups are smaller. The starling is the past decades in number declined in Western Europe. Therefore, in 2014 by BirdLife Netherlands and Sovon proclaimed Year of Starling .
Software makes counting easier
To investigate how the starlings sleeping evolve from year to year, this roost counts are organized. Where are the beds themselves? Which numbers of starlings come to? Special recognition software with pixel is tested to determine the numbers. Accurate The number of starlings in the picture above is estimated by the software at 18,800, with a margin of 200 It is the first time that the number of starlings in a swarm so precisely determined.
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http://youtu.be/2fsSflYgkS0 This is awesome.
Bird Life NL
