Reijn Scharringa (Soil, Water, Atmosphere Bachelor’s student) is a member of the Wolky Talky app group. Sophie van Veen (Soil, Water, Atmosphere Bachelor’s student) shows a photo from the Peaky Finders app group. Photo Luuk Zegers Students are often members of lots of group chats, from study associations and student societies to flatmates, year clubs and sports teams. Some are also in groups that focus on typical Wageningen hobbies and obsessions. Six students talk about their favourite group chats.
Fanatical birdwatchers
Nisse Donders (20, Forest & Nature Conservation Bachelor’s student) is in various bird-themed group chats. ‘There is a close-knit group of young birdwatchers in the Netherlands and a lot of them come from Wageningen. There are various birdwatching app groups. Personally, I’m in Young Birders and Bosbouw Birders, for example. The latter group consists mostly of Forest & Nature Conservation students but it also has birdwatchers doing other degrees. Some go birdwatching together, others go on their own. We always alert each other in the chat if we spot an unusual bird.
‘Last spring, when WUR students spotted a sociable lapwing in the Binnenveld the news travelled like wildfire via the app groups. When our lecture finished, everyone ran outside in the direction of the spot. There was also a marsh sandpiper nearby, and a bit later a pallid harrier flew overhead! That brought the whole of birding Wageningen and the Netherlands to the area. A spectacled eider — an unusual duck — was spotted recently on Texel. The app chat goes mad then: “Anyone heading there got room in their car?” There are definitely some pretty fanatic birders in the chat!’
Mad about fungi
Levi Goudsblom (25, Forest & Nature Conservation Bachelor’s student) posts in Wageningen shroom seekers. ‘I found this group after a fungi identification workshop. Members share tips and photos of fungi. For example, I recently found a large oyster mushroom in the verge of a busy road. Oyster mushrooms apparently absorb a lot of pollutants from the environment, so I didn’t take it.’
When someone shared a moving cow image with “Happy New Year”, they were thrown out of the group immediately
‘Recently, when the weather was freezing, a photo was shared of “hair ice”; that’s not a fungus but it is caused by a fungus in the wood. If the temperature suddenly falls below zero, the fungal activity in the wood continues briefly. That pushes water vapour out through the pores of the wood, and the water vapour then freezes to form thin, glistening threads of ice known as hair ice.’
A love of cattle
Mario Martens (23, Forest & Nature Conservation Master’s student) is in the KFVDD WhatsApp group. ‘It stands for Koeien Foto Van De Dag (cow photo of the day). Our joint assignment is to share one cow photo every day. No more, no less. They are very strict. If at the end of the afternoon you come across the most beautiful cow you have ever seen and a cow has already been posted, you have to wait until the next day. And you can only use emojis to comment on photos: text is forbidden. That rule too is taken very seriously. When someone shared a moving cow image with the message “Happy New Year”, they were thrown out of the group immediately. I’m fine with that. There are so many group chats already, and the restriction to one cow photo a day keeps it manageable.’
Linguistic treasures
Ilja Bouwknegt (26, Forest & Nature Conservation Master’s student) loves language. ‘Which is why one of my friends added me to the Wonderlijke Woorden chat group. People share their favourite crazy, beautiful and unusual words. My favourites? Toondoof, wak, kapseizen, hemellichaam, flets (tone deaf, hole, capsize, heavenly body, dull). Sometimes words are shared that sound fine but you never normally stop and think about them. Echtpaar for example (sounds like it means a ‘real pair’). Occasionally we discuss the etymology (where words come from). But usually it’s just a nice word.’
Crazy about clouds
Sophie van Veen (20, Soil, Water, Atmosphere Bachelor’s student) has been in Wolky Talky, a group whose members share photos of clouds, for five years now. ‘My sister and her friend used to send each other cloud photos. That sounded like fun to me — and others — and before we knew it we had a group of 10, then 20 and now nearly 1000 cloud lovers.’
It led to a cloud couple
‘When the group started growing so fast, we came up with rules. For example, the photo with the most likes becomes the new profile photo. People take cloud etiquette very seriously! If for example someone shares a photo of mountain scenery that happens to have a cloud in it, you know they want to show off their mountain. “Free the Cloud,” we say then.
‘During my first week in Wageningen, I discovered a lot of my fellow Soil, Water, Atmosphere students had been in this group for years. That’s quite funny because my sister is at uni in Amsterdam so the news must have spread somehow. My fellow students can often explain how certain types of clouds develop, which makes it educational too.
‘One of the high points of Wolky Talky was when it led to a cloud couple. Someone posted a photo of a cloud. Another member commented, “I can see the same cloud. Where are you exactly?” They found one another and went on a date. Recently they sent a photo saying they were both in a park watching clouds and adding the text “it’s official”. We are all invited to the cloud wedding!’
Mountain tops
Reijn Scharringa (21, Soil, Water, Atmosphere Bachelor’s student) is in Wolky Talky, like Sophie. The two students are also in another chat group together. ‘As Sophie said, sometimes there would be an outcry on Wolky Talky if people shared amazing photos of mountains with just one small cloud. So the cloud fans who also like mountains started a new group called Peaky Finders. It is a group where people share their loveliest mountain photos. This group chat is more seasonal than Wolky Talky. A lot of students go hiking in the mountains in the summer and skiing in the winter, so that’s when the most photos of mountains are shared. Clouds are a year-round thing.’
