An updating of my travels to Farawaystan countries


visited 32 states (14.2%)

Om räven själv får välja

Hur skulle det vara om till exempel rävar själva fick välja var de skulle äta? En brittisk dokumentär visade för några år sedan att då den lokala korvkiosken stängde, då kom stadens rävar fram och käkade det som människorna ratat tidigare. På liknande sätt anpassar sig djur och fåglar runt omkring oss efter de möjligheter som vi skapar för dem. Ormvråken har blivit motorvägarnas obestridde härskare och på soptippen bestämmer trutarna och på stadens restauranger regerar kajorna...

New Duck in Town

This morning I was out running as I came up behind two ducks. One was obviously a Mallard male, but the other one looked rather strange. Back home I studied Bird Guide - Birds of Europe and the Medterranean in the Field and RSPB Handbook of British Birds for clues on this strange duck. I was unsuccessful! Until I looked a little bit clooser in the RSPB and saw some similarities with a juvinile Mallard. I remembered that Mallards may frpm time to time look strange for different reasons, most probably caused by mixing genetic material with other types of ducks. The picture above is an attempt to show how this strange duck appeared to med this morning. Does anybody has any clue of what it is? Am I on the right track?

Back from Thailand

Ooops, seems like an awful long since I've busy on this site. However, me and my wife went to Thailand for a couple of weeks. We visited my mother-in-law and her husband and experienced some exciting birdwatching in their lovely garden. As the Common Myna for instance. The Common Myna is a very sociable bird, thriving living close to humans. But there were other Mynas as well, the Crested Myna, black birds with a funny set of feathers above their beak. The different Mynas have one thing in common; white spots on their wings which makes their flight look very figurative.



As our hosts lives in the countryside there are lots of White Egrets and they have their special habits during the different phases of the days. They arrive early in the morning, closely following the cows and in the evening they add up in large flocks and leave in a specific direction, for their favorite night spot. Seemingly that is somewhere in a marshland close to the sea, in this case close to Rayong, near the Bay of Thailand.



The prettiest bird on our trip was those nice little doves called Ground Doves. This variety is called the Zebra Dove and is rather tiny, just slightly bigger than a common sparrow.


And the best of all; at the airport my wife succeed in finding my longed for Field Guide of South-East Asian Birds by Craig Robson. Or as David Attenborough would have put it: Absolutely fantastic!