it 's my job to make sure the collection stays okay and that it grows
and basically it means i collect dead animals
back in one thousand nine hundred and ninety five
we got a new wing
next to the museum it was made of glass
and this building really helped me to do my job good
the building was a true bird killer
you may know that birds don 't understand the concept of glass they don 't see it so they fly into the windows and get killed
and it was on
that i heard a loud bang against the glass that changed my life and ended that of a duck
and this is what i saw when i looked out of the window
this is the dead duck it flew against the window it 's laying dead on its belly
and please pay attention
both are of the male sex
well i 'm a biologist i 'm an ornithologist i said something 's wrong here
that must be necrophilia
homosexual necrophilia
took a chair and started to observe this behavior
after seventy five minutes
and i wanted to go home so i went out collected the duck and before i put it in the freezer i checked if the victim was indeed of the male sex
and here 's a rare picture of a duck 's penis so it was indeed of the male sex it 's a rare picture because there are ten thousand species of birds and only three hundred possess a penis
i mean it 's a nice topic for a birthday party or at the coffee machine
but to share this among your peers is something different i didn 't have the framework so after six years my friends and colleagues urged me to publish so i published the first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard
and here 's the situation again
a is my office b is the place where the
duck hit the glass and c is from where i watched it
i got a phone call from a person called marc abrahams and he told me
you 've won a prize with your duck paper the ig nobel prize
nobel prize
nobel prize honors research that first makes people laugh and then makes them think
with the ultimate goal to make more people interested in science that 's a good thing so i
i went
is a very nice experience
real nobel laureates hand you the prize that 's the first thing and there are nine other winners who get prizes here 's one of my fellow winners that 's charles paxton who won the two thousand biology prize for his paper courtship behavior
of ostriches towards humans under farming conditions in britain
in medicine for demonstrating that high priced fake medicine works better than low priced fake medicine
so here 's my one minute of fame
my acceptance speech
you can pass it around please note it 's a museum specimen but there 's no chance you 'll get the avian flu
after winning this prize my life changed in the first place people started to send me all kinds of duck related things
people started to send me their observations of remarkable animal behavior and believe me if there 's an animal misbehaving on this planet i know about it
moose it 's a moose
this is a frog that tries to copulate with a goldfish this is the netherlands two thousand and eleven
these are pigeons in rotterdam
barn swallows in hong kong two thousand and four
this is a turkey in wisconsin on the premises of the ethan allen juvenile correctional institution
it took all day
and the prisoners had a great time
so what does this mean i mean the question i ask myself
why does this happen in nature well what i concluded from
reviewing all these cases is that it is important that this happens only when death is instant
at least i thought it was till i got these slides
another example of the impact of glass buildings on the life of birds this is mad max a blackbird who lives in rotterdam
the only thing this bird did was fly against this window
and here 's a short video
so what this bird does is fight his own image
he sees an intruder in his territory
and i thought in the beginning i studied this bird for a couple of years that well shouldn 't the brain of this bird be damaged it 's not i show you here some slides some frames from the video and at the last moment before he hits the glass he puts his feet in front and then he bangs against the glass
so i 'll conclude to invite you all to dead duck day that 's on june five every year
at five minutes to six in the afternoon
we come together at the natural history museum in rotterdam
the duck comes out of the museum
and we try to discuss new ways to prevent birds from colliding with windows and as you know or as you may not know this is one of the major causes of death for birds in the world in the u s alone a billion birds die in collision with glass buildings
and when it 's over we go to a chinese restaurant
and we have a six course duck dinner
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