Martin Melchers & Geert Timmermans, Haring in het Ij, Amsterdam: Stadsuitgeverij, 1991.
An absolute must-have for animal-spotting in Amsterdam.
Published in 1991, Haring in het Ij (Herring in the Ij) charts the hidden animals worlds of Amsterdam. Driven by a life-long passion for discovering for themselves the oft unsual habitats of macro fauna in the city, city ecologists Martin Melchers and Geert Timmermans decided it was time to put together a fauna guide of Amsterdam — a veritable stomping ground for a miscellany of creatures. The book captures the umwelts of mostly aquatic specimens such as the ubiquitous bream, roach, crayfish and eel and the not-so-unusual appearance of herring found swimming in the Ij, but it also navigates dry land land explaining the often fatal road crossing habits of nomadic hedgehogs or the dyke-destructing doings of the muskrat.
“Whoever has looked at a malignant tumour through the lens of a microscope will have seen a clear similiarity to the contemporary shape of Amsterdam. A centre with knobbly offshoots that reminds of a virulent parasite in a healthy organism.” — Introduction, Haring in het Ij, Martin Melchers & Geert Timmermans (Trans. by Wietske)
This book has and continues to be an invaluable resource for many of our urbanibalist pursuits. Unfortunately it is now out of print (a book published in 1991 is considered geriatric in Dutch publishing time). You may, however, have a bit of luck finding a secondhand copy online or in a Dutch bookstore.