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Vinkenzetting
''Vinkensport'' ( Dutch for ''"finch sport"'') is a competitive animal sport in which male common chaffinches are made to compete for the highest number of bird calls in an hour. Also called ''vinkenzetting'' ("finch sitting"). It is primarily active in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. Vinkensport traces its origins to competitions held by Flemish merchants in 1596, and is considered part of traditional Flemish culture. As of 2007, it was estimated that there are over 13,000 enthusiasts, called ''vinkeniers'' ("finchers"), breeding 10,000 birds every year. Animal rights activists oppose the sport. Description In a contest, a row of small cages, each housing a single male finch, is lined up approximately six feet apart along a street. The proximity of the cages increases the number of calls, as the birds sing for mates and to establish territory. A timekeeper begins and ends the contest with a red flag. Every time a bird sings a correct terminating flourish to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Sport
Animals in sport are a specific form of working animals. Many animals, at least in more commercial sports, are highly trained. Two of the most common animals in sport are horses and dogs. Types of animal sporting events There are many types of animal sporting events, with varying levels of participation from humans. Some are solely between the animals while others use the animals in a lesser role. Most sports involve training, while some can also involve selective breeding. There are some large-scale events that include animals in a variety of sports. A rodeo can comprise many different sports, ranging from bull riding to pole bending. Some of the most well known types of animal racing are horse racing, dog racing (e.g. Greyhound racing, sled dog racing), pigeon racing, and camel racing. Racing Racing is the most popular form of animal-related sport, particularly horse racing. Some racing events directly involve humans as riders while others see the animals race alone. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Chaffinch
The Eurasian chaffinch, common chaffinch, or simply the chaffinch (''Fringilla coelebs'') is a common and widespread small passerine bird in the finch family. The male is brightly coloured with a blue-grey cap and rust-red underparts. The female is more subdued in colouring, but both sexes have two contrasting white wing bars and white sides to the tail. The male bird has a strong voice and sings from exposed perches to attract a mate. The chaffinch breeds in much of Europe, across the Palearctic to Siberia. The female builds a nest with a deep cup in the fork of a tree. The clutch is typically four or five eggs, which hatch in about 13 days. The chicks fledge in around 14 days, but are fed by both adults for several weeks after leaving the nest. Outside the breeding season, chaffinches form flocks in open countryside and forage for seeds on the ground. During the breeding season, they forage on trees for invertebrates, especially caterpillars, and feed these to their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian era, Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain such as those from his native South West England. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as ''Far from the Madding Crowd'' (1874), ''The Mayor of Casterbridge'' (1886), ''Tess of the d'Urbervilles'' (1891) and ''Jude the Obscure'' (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgian Poetry, Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deinze
Deinze () is a city and a municipality in the Belgian province of East Flanders. It comprises the city of Deinze, and the towns of Astene, Bachte-Maria-Leerne, Gottem, Grammene, Hansbeke, Landegem, Meigem, Merendree, Nevele, Petegem-aan-de-Leie, , Sint-Martens-Leerne, Vinkt, Vosselare, Wontergem, and Zeveren. On 1 January 2022, Deinze had a population of 44,315. The municipality's total area is , giving a population density of 342 inhabitants per km2. On 1 January 2019, the municipality of Nevele was merged into Deinze. History In 1695, during the Nine Years' War, an English force garrisoned in the town under the command of the Irish general Francis Fergus O’Farrell was forced to surrender to French forces. Postal history The DEYNZE post office opened in 1836 with the postal code 31 (before 1864), then 94 prior to 1874. The only other office in the area before 1910 was PETEGHEM (not to be confused with PETEGHEM-LEZ-AUDENAERDE), which opened 1 June 1874. Postal codes in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selective Breeding
Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together. Domesticated animals are known as breeds, normally bred by a professional breeder, while domesticated plants are known as varieties, cultigens, cultivars, or breeds. Two purebred animals of different breeds produce a crossbreed, and crossbred plants are called hybrids. Flowers, vegetables and fruit-trees may be bred by amateurs and commercial or non-commercial professionals: major crops are usually the provenance of the professionals. In animal breeding artificial selection is often combined with techniques such as inbreeding, linebreeding, and outcrossing. In plant breeding, similar methods are used. Charles Darwin discussed how selective breeding had been succ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blindness
Visual or vision impairment (VI or VIP) is the partial or total inability of visual perception. In the absence of treatment such as corrective eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment, visual impairment may cause the individual difficulties with normal daily tasks, including reading and walking. The terms ''low vision'' and ''blindness'' are often used for levels of impairment which are difficult or impossible to correct and significantly impact daily life. In addition to the various permanent conditions, fleeting temporary vision impairment, amaurosis fugax, may occur, and may indicate serious medical problems. The most common causes of visual impairment globally are uncorrected refractive errors (43%), cataracts (33%), and glaucoma (2%). Refractive errors include near-sightedness, far-sightedness, presbyopia, and astigmatism (eye), astigmatism. Cataracts are the most common cause of blindness. Other disorders that may cause visual problems include age-related macular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CD Player
A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital audio, digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audiobooks. CD players may be part of home stereo systems, car audio systems, personal computers, or portable CD players such as CD boomboxes. Most CD players produce an output signal via a headphone jack or RCA jacks. To use a CD player in a home stereo system, the user connects an RCA cable from the RCA jacks to a hi-fi (or other power amplifier, amplifier) and loudspeakers for listening to music. To listen to music using a CD player with a headphone output jack, the user plugs headphones or earphones into the headphone jack. Modern units can play audio formats other than the original CD PCM audio coding, such as MP3, Advanced Audio Coding, AAC and Windows Media Audio, WMA. DJs playing dance music at clubs often use specialize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Testosterone
Testosterone is the primary male sex hormone and androgen in Male, males. In humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of Male reproductive system, male reproductive tissues such as testicles and prostate, as well as promoting secondary sexual characteristics such as increased muscle and bone mass, and the growth of androgenic hair, body hair. It is associated with increased aggression, sex drive, Dominance hierarchy, dominance, courtship display, and a wide range of behavioral characteristics. In addition, testosterone in both sexes is involved in health and well-being, where it has a significant effect on overall mood, cognition, social and sexual behavior, metabolism and energy output, the cardiovascular system, and in the prevention of osteoporosis. Insufficient levels of testosterone in men may lead to abnormalities including frailty, accumulation of adipose fat tissue within the body, anxiety and depression, sexual performance issues, and bone loss. Excessiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doping (sport)
In competitive sports, doping is the use of banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) by athletes, as a way of cheating. As stated in the World Anti-Doping Code by WADA, doping is defined as the occurrence of one or more of the anti-doping rule violations outlined in Article 2.1 through Article 2.11 of the Code. The term ''doping'' is widely used by organizations that regulate sporting competitions. The use of drugs to enhance performance is considered unethical and is prohibited by most international sports organizations, including the International Olympic Committee. Furthermore, athletes (or athletic programs) taking explicit measures to evade detection exacerbate the ethical violation with overt deception and cheating. The origins of doping in sports go back to the creation of the sport itself. From ancient usage of substances in chariot racing to more recent controversies in doping in baseball, doping in tennis, doping at the Olympic Games, and doping at the T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spectrogram
A spectrogram is a visual representation of the spectrum of frequencies of a signal as it varies with time. When applied to an audio signal, spectrograms are sometimes called sonographs, voiceprints, or voicegrams. When the data are represented in a 3D plot they may be called '' waterfall displays''. Spectrograms are used extensively in the fields of music, linguistics, sonar, radar, speech processing, seismology, ornithology, and others. Spectrograms of audio can be used to identify spoken words phonetically, and to analyse the various calls of animals. A spectrogram can be generated by an optical spectrometer, a bank of band-pass filters, by Fourier transform or by a wavelet transform (in which case it is also known as a scaleogram or scalogram). A spectrogram is usually depicted as a heat map, i.e., as an image with the intensity shown by varying the colour or brightness. Format A common format is a graph with two geometric dimensions: one axis represents time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Song
Bird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In non-technical use, bird songs (often simply ''birdsong'') are the bird sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology and birding, songs (relatively complex vocalizations) are distinguished by function from calls (relatively simple vocalizations). Definition The distinction between songs and calls is based upon complexity, length, and context. Songs are longer and more complex and are associated with Territory (animal), territory and Bird#Breeding, courtship and mating, while calls tend to serve such functions as Alarm signal, alarms or keeping members of a herd, flock in contact. Other authorities such as Howell and Webb (1995) make the distinction based on function, so that short vocalizations, such as those of pigeons, and even non-vocal sounds, such as the drumming of woodpeckers and the "Drumming (snipe), winnowing" of snipes' wings in display flight, are considered songs. Still others require song ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wallonia
Wallonia ( ; ; or ), officially the Walloon Region ( ; ), is one of the three communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, regions of Belgium—along with Flemish Region, Flanders and Brussels. Covering the southern portion of the country, Wallonia is primarily Geographical distribution of French speakers, French-speaking. It accounts for 55% of Belgium's territory, but only a third of its population. The Walloon Region and the French Community of Belgium, which is the political entity responsible for matters related mainly to culture and education, are independent concepts, because the French Community of Belgium encompasses both Wallonia and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region but not the German-speaking Community of Belgium, which administers nine municipalities in Eastern Wallonia. During the Industrial Revolution, Wallonia was second only to the United Kingdom in industrialization, capitalizing on its extensive deposits of coal and iron. This brought the regio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
