It is summer 1923. In the mouth of the Maas, cut off from the mainland by the brand new Nieuwe Waterweg, lies the island of De Beer. It is an unspoilt nature reserve with wild old fells and Duindoorns, sandbanks where seals rest and huge numbers of breeding birds.
Nobody is allowed to get there, but four school boys have a permit. They received it through the enthusiastic teacher who leads their ‘Club van Haagsche Trekwaarden’. They can go to the bear as often as they want, as long as they report everything they perceive in nature. In word and image. The bikes with which they always from The Hague to Hoek van Holland Stairs are not only heavily loaded with food, camping gear and a foldable canvas canoe, but also with tripods, bulky cameras and photographic glass plates.
The De Beer area on a map from 1925 of the topographical service and the situation on a satellite image from 2023. Nowadays there are the refinery of BP and the mouth of the Calandkanaal, parallel to the Nieuwe Waterweg. In the west the Maasvlakte.Source Eox :: Maps and Land Registry
For six years the boys go to the bear as often as possible. They publish articles with photos and in 1930, if they are still in early twenties, even a whole book: The bird island. Jac. P. Thijsse (1865-1945) writes the preface. It is he who had encouraged the boys to take pictures of birds that are statically on their nest, but also of their complex behavior – and also describe that. What exactly do those birds do when they balt, feed and defend their nest? And why would that be?
The boys are part of a newly open science: the behavioral biology. He no longer looks at animals as pre -programmed machines, but as individually unique beings with a complex social behavior – in fact just like ourselves. The four are lifted by that new current, but she and their friends then give it an unprecedented twist. They look with endless patience at individual birds in their own environment.
Their names? Gerrit Beusekom (‘Beus’), Frans Kooijmans (‘Kooij’), Martin Rutten (‘Martien’) and Niko Tinbergen (‘Niek’). The latter will receive a Nobel Prize in 1973 for his pioneering work in behavioral biology.
Biologist and writer Roelke Posthumus wrote a book about it, which appeared on 7 February: Focusing – How Niko Tinbergen and his friends taught us to watch. It is the tenth book in a varied oeuvre about the relationship between people and nature.
Why this book? Isn’t there a beautiful biography about Tinbergen, ‘Niko’s nature’ by Hans Kruuk?
“Yes, that’s right, but my book is not a biography of Tinbergen. More a biography of ethology: the objective and detailed study of animal behavior. There are few people who know that it is mainly Dutch people who have been at the cradle of that branch within the behavioral biology. They really developed a fundamentally different way of looking at animal behavior and asking questions about it. A way that you later see with famous biologists such as Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal. ”
All those boys and girls who always went outside and had a lot of fun … but in the meantime really made observations of top level
What was that for way?
“A method that is based on looking carefully at what an animal does in its natural environment. Study endless chunks of behavior to unravel what is really happening. Brushing feathers, throwing the head back, begging, looking away, picking … Until then, animal psychologists only examined animals in captivity. Often as a model to be able to understand human behavior, and with a focus on emotions. The ethologists always tried to stay away and Tinbergen has been a key figure in that revolution. Not only through his own research, but also by inspiring others and bringing the work of others together cleverly. I wanted to grasp that story. “
It is also just an exciting adventure story.
“Yes, and a very nice typical Dutch story. It is about the enormous influence of all those tireless teachers, such as Thijsse and the Hague teachers of these four boys, who encouraged their students to go outside and thus had a lasting impact on whole generations. It is also about the rise of the youth unions for nature studies. All those boys and girls who always went outside in that Dutch nature and had a lot of fun there, who took their entire identity out of it, putting social conventions overboard, had a great sense of community … but in the meantime really made observations of top level. That patient, that dedicated – but also the role of that primitive photography, forcing you to look very accurately, in all those self -built shelters … “
It sounds like you would have wanted to live at that time?
“Yes, a bit, right? I have always found that world very interesting, but I miss the patience and the dedication to sit at an individual animal all day. I also love reading, pulling around and messing around in the garden. “
I often read things that I think: what kind of chatter is that? What do you mean?
As a child, did you have all that love for nature?
“I grew up outside in the Veluwe. My father was a farmer’s son. He was always busy outside, with the garden and with the animals and fishing or hunting early in the morning. He sometimes took me on the Veluwemeer in a boat. Then he showed me bird nests. And he was a storyteller. So I have that combination from him. My mother looked a bit like Lorenz. There was always a young goose behind her. Everything that was plant or animal was and fooled, she managed to patch up again. “
Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) was an Austrian behavioral biologist, known for the wild geese he raised and who then saw him as a ‘parent figure’. He did a lot of experimental work on imprinting, or imprinting: the phenomenon that young animals have certain sensitive phases in which they learn specific things.
Posthumus: “Lorenz was friends with Niko Tinbergen. They received the Nobel Prize together in 1973 – and with Karl von Frisch, the discoverer of the bijendans. That Nobel Prize was therefore actually intended for the field of Ethology, that new behavioral biological method, in which they were all three pioneers. My father gave me a book by Lorenz at some point. And just before I went to study, I read two field biology books from Tinbergen. I thought that was wonderful: all those people who did smart experiments and discovered totally unexpected things … ”
… and who also managed to write it down so nicely?
“Yes, because what Tinbergen and his friends of course did very well, they had learned that from those schoolmasters, was accessible. It is not about keeping all that beauty for yourself. They were allowed to go to the bear, but then they had to make a nice book about it. I also think that is an assignment. That you have to write accessible. I often read things that I think: what kind of chatter is that? What do you mean, and did you really understand it yourself? So in this book myself I did my best for that.
“I secretly hope that Tinbergen would pick that out if he read it. That he would say: ‘Roelke, even if you are not willing to spend days in a leaking hide, and to focus again and again to focus your lenses on a breeding bird … You did well. Continue like this. ‘ Or something in that direction. ”