J. Frank de Miranda, Jeroen C.S. Creuwels, Jan van Dooren & Folkert K. de Boer (2025) The diaries of Bernardus van Dooren give historical insight in the avifauna of the Kempen. LIMOSA 98 (3): 136-142.

Between 1932 and 1977 Bernardus van Dooren searched for bird nests in his spare time. He did that in a systematic way to achieve an overview covering all breeding bird species in the Dutch part of the Kempen. But equally important is his detailed and complex administration of data. The dataset of the Kempen contains data from 4599 clutches of eggs and includes clutches from a little less than 150 species. That makes his diaries and the collection of part of his documented clutches worth investigating and worth making the data available to future researchers interested in better understanding of the historical avifauna and its biodiversity. The Dutch Avifaunistic Circle, a section of the Netherlands Ornithologists’ Union did the digitization and the first analysis of the data in a two-year project, with support from the Netherlands Biodiversity Information Facility (NLBIF). In this paper details about the administration of Bernardus van Dooren are presented as well as the first results of an avifaunistic analysis.

[dutch summary]