Olaf Danielson's Blog, page 3

A Good Friday Bulbul

 The end of the road south of High Island Texas made one realize what day was today, but I did not go birding today looking for anything in particular in High Island.  We stopped in East Texas to see a bird, a bird I have seen at least 132 of previously and even 14 in Hawaii, but never any in the Classical ABA.  Birding for me is a game of lists and at times, the list must be kept up.  

The Red-vented bulbul is a very common bird in the Indian subcontinent of Asia, and Bhutan for that matter but it was not considered countable in North America until the population in an around Houston Texas had been considered self-sustaining long enough to qualify for the rules and someone to make a motion to add it.  How they came to Houston is unknown but suspicious they arrived by ship or the pet trade although one would not suspect this bird would be popular. The first bird recorded was in 1958,  The birds started breeding in the Heights area north of Houston and in 2010, they were included on the ebird list for the area starting around 2010, and in 2016 when Hawaii was added to the ABA which included red-vented bulbuls, since the population in Houston was both sustaining, established, and been around for quite some time it eventually became countable by being added to the "list."

My life list for the "classic" or continental ABA is sitting at 823 after not really chasing anything for a while.  Oddly, I have three birds that I could count around, a Whooper swan in Newfoundland (which I can't fit in my schedule), a brown jay in South Texas which is on private land and even though I will drive close by to it, I do not think I know any way to get, both really good birds, tough rarities to see, and then there is these silly bulbuls in Houston, so what ends up on my quest?  Houston....

I have been though Houston in an airplane 8 times since the bird was countable and I have yet to stop, but 2023 was different.

We left Paradise in Florida on Wednesday in "Big Bird" packed up for a lazy trip north awaiting the snowmelt.  We are going north by going west.  So, we headed west towards Texas.  First night camping was at a RV campground east of Pensacola and the second night we arrived last night in Beaumont, Texas after seeing Tony the Truckstop Tiger in Louisiana.  We have camped twice now in Beaumont, both times it has rained hard and stormed all night that it makes one wonder if that is all that it does in East Texas.

The rain paused enough this morning to drive the car over to Houston on our day off to look for the bulbul.  We went to Woodland Park, it was cool and dreary but no bulbuls showed.  We walked down to the White Oak Park green belt and walked around some more as it started to rain and then as we were heading back to the car something with a white butt flew out of a tree.  It was like we were back in Bhutan, and instantly recognized.  "There we go."  I said and Silja looked and then went to the car to get out of the rain while I pulled out my camera from the backpack for a couple of bad photos.

Red Vented Bulbul

It was the bird and it was countable.  Yeah!! I guess?  I was just happy to be able to get out of the rain.  To celebrate, we then had lunch at a nearby café, the Belgium Café and I had my lifer beer which here was a St Barnardus beer.  

It was a Belgian beer some consider the best in the world (or so they claim on their website).  It was good, maybe too good and a beer I should have saved for a brown jay or a whooper swan, I guess next time I'll try something else.  The food was also great, so if you come to Houston and whether you see the bulbul or not, stop by and have a glass on tap, try it with the curried chicken salad, the lobster bisque or the mussels, it is all good and you'll be reminded of Brussels.

We then drove to High Island. A birding "Holy Grail" spot I have never been to before. We walked around.  There were some warblers flitting about including some worm eating warblers, and a hooded warbler like this one.

With the big storm finally going through, there could be some good fallout tomorrow or possibly Sunday, but we have to get going towards Big Bend National Park.  Beaumont is just a wayside on the trip.  But I have bird number #824 in USA/ Canada ex Hawaii and I guess that is something.  Tomorrow, westward ho!

Happy Easter

I hope your Passover was special

Olaf

 

Ooh Mexico

                         

Jimmy Buffett sang a cover on his 1995 album from a James Taylor song, "Feeling Blue running your stateside game, loose your load leave your mind behind.....Ooooooh Mexico" and that about summed it up...too much thinking....
I have not written a blog for a while, I lost a computer due to '''cat fur in the fan."  Famous words from the Tech at Best Buy opening up my laptop..."What is the name of your white cat?"  Luckily the $1000 repair was under a Geek Squad warranty...it took over a month to get it back, and it has taken a while for me to get it going again.  

Now, it was time for another trip, a trip scheduled to Mazatlan, Mexico.  The plan was to visit my wife's Brother and sister-in-law with her sister they have been at sea in their sailboat.  So would you actually go on a trip with the following warnings?  

"The State Department issued a Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory for the state of Sinaloa due to crime and kidnapping. This means that the U.S. government may not be able to help you if you are in a sticky situation while in Mazatlán. The travel advisory is so high in this state because of high crime rates."  

This is the same alert level for places like North Korea, South Sudan, and Libya.  The only places worse...the Donbas of Ukraine and Iran

You know just being next to the border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California I have felt unsafe.  Sometimes even from the Border Patrol meant to keep us safe.  I have been shot at in Texas.  (I think I was on USFW land being used to grow weed).

I did not want to go on this trip, but found it impossible to not go, since if my wife was going anyhow, I would never live with myself if I stayed and she went and ...Mexico got her.  I lost sleep for weeks.  I spent days organizing our personal effects. Saving passwords, I even cried as I wrote final letters each to our three children encouraging them and shared my most intimate thoughts, reflecting on the highlights, final thoughts, and apologizing for my failings as a father.  

My wife's sister's reservations got cancelled and I hoped it was an omen but they rebooked them at a different hotel.  I was finally forced to book the air flights. I slept the last night 24 hours before we were scheduled to go and got up and knew I would rather die with my wife then live alone.  So frustrated and nervous we went.  I was an emotional wreck by the time we got in the Tampa airport.

You can guess that by writing this, we did not get killed by Narco traffickers or by drinking the water.  We got home.  What if you ignore travel warnings and still nothing happens?  Was the US State Department paranoid, or were we (as in I) just crazy?

I gave a packet to my neighbors to "give to my daughter, when we go missing."  Not if but when...It was odd for them to hear.  They asked questions.  I just said we are going to Sinaloa, look it up.  They soon understood.

On a good note, we got upgraded from Houston to Mazatlan, when I get upgraded on United, something is really wrong.  It was bad good news.

Initially, I despised the drug addicts for giving rise to the cartels, then the cartels for being cartels, then the Mexicans for putting up with the bullsh%t.  We got there, the most scary things in the Mazatlan airport were the people trying to sell us time shares. Slick pushy con artists....free meal, fee boat trip, free...yea nothing is ever free.  Okay, imho, buying a timeshare in Mexico, means maybe you deserve to get fleeced.  Then I was mad at the timeshare people, and now, I am most mad at the tourists who buy that crap, and I still am.  Since a US person cannot legally own property in Mexico, buying a timeshare means what...?  I began to look at the rubes being duped in the lobby of our hotel.

There was a comment online that people should avoid Mexico because they are enabling all of this....I think things like this need to be heeded.  There were tourists asking the people at the front desk if it was safe to even leave the lobby or to even get in a cab.....so a few were also worried.  Most looked clueless that Mexico was not Texas.....but it is Mexico!

Mexico....I have not stayed at the west coast of Mexico since 1997 when we went to a medical conference in Ixtapa for a week and stayed in a nearby city.  Some two years later, we went to Cozumel, and I have stopped there twice on Cruise ships.  I have written before I hate Cozumel.  In the 26 years since Ixtapa and now to Mazatlan, Mexico is still the same.  Maybe the roads have a fewer potholes but the vehicles are beat, the buildings done on the cheap, some unfinished, the hotels are over the top in size next to uneven sidewalks, garbage in vacant lots, and with slums a few blocks or even a few feet away.  The inside of these hotels look cheap and like the Nineties are calling and want their walls back.  

Mexicans with money seem to be a problem, some obviously were kept watch by guards on the drug payroll.  They act like everything is fine and normal, and yet it all looks like if the big fault moves just offshore (and there is a big fault offshore), it all will come tumbling down and Mazatlan would look like Turkey. (There is a BIG fault just offshore BTW). The place is a mix of trophy wives, girlfriends, spoiled Mexican children intermixed all the while overweight Canadian and American tourists (including me), typically retirees also acting like this is all normal with their ill fitting shirts, strange hats, and looking and acting like they are marks for all sorts of scams.  

If the US government warned us all to be careful...being drunk, dressing and acting like Americans and flashing money in the lobby and taking loudly at meals about their assets....maybe they deserve to be sold timeshares or worse?  We got called for the special "welcome packet."  We snuck through the lobby to avoid the timeshare sales squad each time separating and using the old oh I need to ask my spuse if we were intercepted, and found ourselves at overpriced restaurants....in one somehow I think by paying cash, the waiter even got all of the money.  I tried to keep out a watchful eye, but 

1) the weather was cold and windy and the beaches at Mazatlan had water that looked scarier for disease than the men watching the drug captain's trophy women and children.  Mazatlan has a sewage problem

2) My wife's family wanted to go do some things....walk the area, they bought concert tickets, wanted to check the restaurant scene...although I had hoped we could just sit and enjoy the resort and never leave....alas you just could not.

3) the resort we had was sort of under construction, painting next door, building a seawall, and piles of material just outside our building.  Noise and more noise.  There were no flowers, few birds, and well, I was not thinking of showing off my big camera for a seawatch...

4) So even I was getting bored....  after a while, at least getting kidnapped was something interesting, and there was little interesting that I had seen there.  I guess I'd die birding...

You know, Mazatlan look as though it was a fine idea in 1990, but it looked tired in 2023, even without the dangers...people who "loved" it had not been any other place, because of they had....they would have went there.  You could wade into the beach in Cozumel, here...?  Too rough, too cold, too toxic.

We went to see the in-laws boat and ate dinner in here,  Brave people sailing in such a small craft with just two people, Portland Oregon to Mazatlan....

   They risk death everyday at sea, Mazatlan must seem like crossing the street to them.  The 36 foot Gypsy.

The view from the hotel.  It was not inclusive.  The drinks so heavily watered down you could not even taste the alcohol.  We ate a couple of passable breakfasts.  They were short of pool lounges.  They had little beach.  You could take a trip to the island but I was unsure what the attraction was....Pelican nests ...thirst?

Functional spartan room with twin full-sized beds, hard mattress, rodents in the airducts, lost of traffic noise and you could here bingo calls from the hotel next to you, but it had a nice breeze.  FOX and CNN only English TV.  $200/ night

So I got to #4 and throwing caution to the wind, I made contact with a friend of a friend who had a friend who knew someone that would take us birding.  They "guaranteed" our safety, for $150 each.  A day before it turns out, the guide named Jose, was up at the tufted jay place, where even my "friend" was certain it would never be safe to go.....luckily, we went some place else.  It was still out there in the middle of nowhere

Mazatlan melts into desert scrub almost immediately.  When you are out of town, you are out of town and nowhere.  

We went to a preserve mostly noted for jaguars and hiked 5 miles, locking ourselves in.  The key under a hidden rock  Most likely the dangers there were big cats and heat. I was uneasy as we trudge looking for some birds.  I found a few lifers, and saw many Arizona birds.  We missed a couple that I did not see, the guide did, and we ate some food cook over the woodstove when two new stoves stood a few feet away.  Possibly they did not have electricity nor propane. 

Purplish backed jay

Golden cheeked woodpecker
Elegant quail
black throated magpie jay

rufous bellied chachalaca

I added nine lifer birds, which considering the paucity of my Mexican bird list the haul here was rather light, but how many birds is a bullet worth?  We did not bird at a second location.
We drove to see a set of odd petroglyphs on boulders by the sea.  We like these things and my wife was more impressed with them than the birds. Possibly a frightened Olaf

A pelican
We passed a man hiding a rifle under his shirt on a motorcycle coming out.  Luckily it was not pointed at us.  Generally, there were no police outside of the city and few in it.  Not sure if all of the shooting in Mazatlan in January has given way to a truce or everyone was tired after Carnival.  
We went back to the rather small dumpy looking airport, not the airport you would expect of a high end tourist place, the plane came, a woman in 1st Class got interviewed and was kicked off the plane and left without incident.  The random inspections at the gate were mothers of small children.  We were a little poorer, we had successfully avoided the time sales team and the kidnappers with equal success.  We left Silja's sister behind with our water and coffee and well wishes and flew home.
No shootings, no signs of the army, and no burnt out cars, well.....On the way back to our RV from the Tampa Airport we came across this..
A burning car on the Veterans Expressway, it was just an accident but still it made me think.  Life in the USA is dangerous too.  I have been to dangerous places, South Africa for one, but I have been to Latin Countries that I have felt totally safe, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Argentina to name some and Mexico...well Mexico is Mexico and it should be better, but alas it will never change IMHO.  I guess it is all of our faults.
We survived and I got a few birds, and I will renew my vow to stay away from life South of the Border...
Be safe wherever you go
Olaf

Merry Christmas 2022

 

Although I still have a second Bhutan installment to add, we had to drive into the frozen tundra of northern Wisconsin, here is our Christmas "letter" to everyone

Christmas letters are like children.  They take a while to nurture, grow, and evolve into something…something that hopefully benefit society or at least amuse the reader.  Whether one went everywhere and did everything OR went no where and did nothing, a good letter is on the presentation and not the substance.  Letters are also all about the annual rite, the tradition and expectation of getting the latter in the mail and the process of doing them.  I, for one, have been neglectful in recent years as life has tended to make me busy.  For this I do apologize.

 I always start the gathering of material for my Christmas letters slowly.  First, we plan a trip shortly after Christmas the previous year which if it ends in a fiasco, can be conveniently excluded for the next Christmas letter.  Take last year for example, we planned a trip to Tucson, a computer glitch occurred, and our flights were cancelled.  We split up the next day in a second attempt to make it to warmer confines.  Some of us made it and well, some of us did NOT.  Then it rained in Tucson and some of us got COVID, but one thing good did come out of that trip.  Being stranded in Chicago brought a welcome bonus. Silja found her missing binoculars lost from the post-Christmas trip the year before in Tyko’s car. Unfortunately, I had bought her a replacement pair for a Christmas gift.

Another tip to a good Christmas letter is to keep it light.  Avoid illness and other maladies that may have plagued you during the year.  We went to two funerals, but no one wants to hear that.  Luckily, in 2022, was generally healthy for the five of us.  I also think it is prudent if one has spent the bulk of the winter in the south to not brag about it.  Most of our friends and family live up north where it is cold and snowy, especially when they will see this letter.  Reminding them that we spent the winter in Florida is just bad form and possibly causing them discomfort.

The adolescence of 2022 began for us in April, we drove north, and went to Scotland and returned in May with just enough time to get to Lauren’s College graduation from Hamline University in St Paul.  There were smiles and shouts all around when she crossed the stage to get her diploma.  Sadly, after three and a half years at Hamline, her cat, Annie did not get her diploma.  Apparently, she was a whisker away, having failed her class on mousing.  Lauren started Dental School at the University of Minnesota this fall.  At one point we had to transport pulled South Dakota teeth to her for practice.  The things one has to do for children.

It was a glorious summer—long, and filled with family and visiting friends, even Camilla from Sweden.  We went to Canada three times.  Silja caught the largest fish, 40 ¾ inch northern pike.  Allwin painted the most on our house.  Tyko drove the farthest to visit from Chicago.  Lauren made the largest sculpture, a ten-foot green dinosaur/ Pokémon now in the front yard of the cabin.   There was a lot of creativity during the year.  I wrote books and magazine articles, Silja weaved, and Lauren sculpted.  Allwin made novel enzymes at his PhD program and Tyko, in his 3/4thyear medical school in Chicago made diagnoses for many of the patients he was seeing with illness he’d never seen before.

It was a big year for Allwin, too, he graduated from University of Wisconsin with his PhD in Chemistry.   Just because he could, Allwin took a post-doctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute in Jena Germany.  He started this fall and will be overseas for two years.  Possibly his inspiration was to avoid painting any more of the house.

It is not like Tyko has not been doing crazy things in the style that seems to be us.  Medical School is a busy time not conducive to whims and fancies (autocorrect wanted for me to write “shims and pansies” but don’t let me get started on autocorrect nor pansies).  His life is like ours was back in the day, lack of sleep, overwhelming material, and a feeling of being so low on the totem pole, you were superfluous, except he is in Chicago.    

It is a vicious rumor that we plan adventures just to have things to be included in our Christmas letters.  These “mock ordeals” of spending a year of “living biblically” by the Jewish rules, dressing up as a dog for the entire year, or eating just McDonald’s food are for others.  Why would someone do a “big year” birding, or go to someplace like Bhutan to see as many phallic paintings and sculptures as they could?  Well, we went to Bhutan last month and never saw anyone doing that.

The year matured into old age for us in Thailand and Bhutan in November.  It was an epic four-week trip.  It was the best of times, and the worst of times, but what was best or worst depended on how you looked at it and when.  It was a trip of learning Buddhist culture, Thai and Bhutanese culture, spicy food, seeing cool birds, and having a nice idyl at a resort in Thailand.  This compared to a near plane crash (well it seemed near at the time), salmonella, a suicide hike to a mountain temple, and 21,000 miles in the air. The memories of salmonella will always be there.  Luckily, the suspicious package we were sitting next to in Tokyo did not do anything but remain suspicious.  I saw a sign at the Calcutta airport along the way that said, “travel like you mean it.”  Why would you travel like you did NOT mean it?  I did not mean to get salmonella, but well, I ate the eggs, and stuff happens.

We came back to Florida, fought jetlag and then, possibly somewhat full of impulsivity, or maybe an illness, we had an offer accepted on a house last week.  The house is a mile from our campsite in Florida, both are north of Tampa in a rather interesting community not unlike the RV park we are in.  NO, we are not selling the RV, nor the lot.  Everyone asks.  We are still going to Big Bend this spring and parking it north of Minneapolis for the summer.  We will also need to build a shed at Enemy Swim Lake this summer, and maybe eventually work on selling our Milbank house.  Tyko graduates from medical school this spring in Chicago as well. There are many things to do next year hopefully providing much to write about next year.    

We are driving north this week.  I’m chasing a bird in Iowa if it is still around (it wasn't).  I have books to pick up in Indiana, and we are going to South Dakota before the great family Christmas shuffle.  Enjoying the holidays is always a process in logistics, weather forecasting, and sleeping in strange beds and cold rooms.  We left the cats behind with Lauren this fall, and we need to get them back to the RV.  It may make a story for a country song…a Volvo full of beef, cats, Christmas presents, and stuff we forgot to take with the RV—title: “Lost in Louisville” or maybe “Crazy in Chattanooga.”  “Vomiting in Vidalia” is the most likely song title as the trip will be full of vomit and gnashing of teeth, hopefully mostly Tiger the cat’s.

I might add, Allwin dedicated his PhD thesis to his great grandmother Lucille Danielson, and this will be the fourth Christmas we are having without her.  We have her meatballs but not her, and it just does not feel right.....a toast to her from me as well with a tear in my eye.  

So, there it is, another Christmas letter.  Merry Christmas from the Clan of Daniel, Olaf, Silja (Sarah), Allwin, Tyko (Seth), and Lauren.

The Ultimate Bhutan Adventure Synopsis: Part I

I have just spent 18 days in Bhutan.  We flew out of Paro Airport this morning.  I took 15,500 photos, some of which I still have yet to process.  Along the way, I lost 300 do to a camera mishap.  I lost a $500 teleconverter I've had for a decade.  My legs hurt from Friday's 2000 foot accent to the Tiger's Nest, which also included an extra 760 step decent plus 200 step ascent which had to be repeated coming out.  Along the way my wife ran out of gas and we had to help he amble down the hill on worn out knees.  

I bought a few souvenirs, a local guide to birds and butterflies literally delivered to us through an open window driving past a wide spot on the road to the capital, Thimphu, a rock taken from the mountain yesterday, a book on the Bhutan obsession of the phallus, and a refrigerator magnet with a phallus on it, because, I had to buy something.

The ubiquitous penises of Bhutan 

A penis with teeth and hairy scrotum on the side of a house, have they gone...too far?

There are thousands of photos of them, but I will spare you more
The Divine Madman has an interesting history. The legendary saint, Drupka Kunley, came to Bhutan 500 years ago to expel a demon from Dochula, the same mountain pass we just crossed on the road from Thimphu. The demon took the form of a dog which Kunley trapped in the stupa atop a mound in the form of a woman’s breast, which is now his sacred site of the fertility temple. He struck the demon with his Thunderbolt of Flaming Wisdom, his penis, and it fell down dead. As he did so he spoke the words Chi Mi, or no dog, and there we have the origin of the name of the temple. The site was blessed by Kunley and in 1499 C.E. the monastery was built in his honor by his cousin Ngawang Choegyel, the 14th Drukpa.
Too be honest, saying anything about Bhutan in between 1000 and 1500 words is impossible.  The place is both glorious and a little sad because of expected "paradise lost" which ALWAYS occurs at such places.  We saw it happen at Grenada 30 years ago and once something it is found, it gets destroyed  Mind you they claim it to be the center of happiness.  The people do seem content, yet with everyone with cellphones, the outside world is just a google search away and with it, the temptation of desire....which is talked about in their Buddhist beliefs as leading to Greed and then Ignorance....but the lure is still there.

I took a picture for a Turkish woman yesterday who had been everywhere and criticized Bhutan for not being "authentic."  Much of the souvenirs offered claim to be authentically Bhutanese, but our bus driver admitted it is all made in Nepal or India, and none of it was authentic but I am not sure that is what the Turkish woman was saying.....maybe it was the new slavish devotion to the tourism trade both helping the country and one leading to its downfall, but alas, she did not explain, nor did I ask her to.

First, let us discuss the bathrooms.  As I mentioned earlier, this was not a trip for sissies.

We had two types of bathrooms.  Impromptu outhouses, a hole dug, a kind of portable sitting device inside a rather small tent (zipper malfunctioned right away) and what I called the "hole and hope room."  The room had a hole, you squatted, hoped you hit the hole and a bucket was nearby for cleaning misses.  Some people did not clean up, and there was never enough water.

Some of the many scenic outhouse locations...........


One location was in the garden in the back yard of Camp Cement discussed earlier.

Bhutan is overrun by dogs, they sleep all day, usually in the road, or come to beg for food, and then bark all night.  Some even have interesting houses.

 At the heart, this was a birding trip, we saw some of the sights

Punakha Dzong, a five hundred year old fort and the Temple of a Thousand Buddhas

We weren't allowed to photograph in the temple

More pictures from the Tiger's Nest.  The group that made it halfway up to the Tea House.  Five of us made it to the overlook on the left, four of us (me included) made it to the Holy sight.

                 

We saw lots of fabulous birds....unfortunately not the best one, the white bellied heron, a bird that will undoubtedly go extinct before I get a second chance.  Why?  Well probably the development of the rivers of source for power which ironically, is sadly sent to India.  If not the damming of the rivers, it is the powerlines.  They have exposed 10 miles of river bed here totally diverting a major river at one place.  Be it the loss of water or the electrical lines connecting to it, the heron is in peril.

We did see Ward's Trogan, my bad picture

our guide Dorgi, got better pictures
My picture bad but at least we saw one. Yellow billed blue magpie

We had a slew of warblers, quick and hard to identify.

ash throated warbler

Gray hooded warbler
Black rumped magpie arecent split from the Eurasian magpie
blood pheasant
Chestnut tailed minla
This is just a taste of the many birds, we will post another blog shortly with more birds, more sights of our Epic trip to Bhutan
Olaf

The Journey Home

The road to Bhutan, the diminutive Buddhist country in the eastern Himalayas is a long one.  For us, it was flights from Tampa to Houston to Narita-Tokyo and one to Bangkok.  From Bangkok we flew to Bagdogra, India and then to Paro.  We stayed in Bhutan for 18 days.  We saw birds, animals, and say Buddhism in its most living form in my humble opinion.  The trip home was even more brutal.  We left our hotel in Paro at 4AM after a night of obligate cultural immersion at a private home. 

This was a birding trip

We flew to Kalikat (Calcutta), that incredibly smog infested city in India.  We did not deplane, but I did take a picture of an interesting slogan on another plane.  

Which is more interesting, the note on the stairs, "Lets get high together" or the name of the airline, "Ease my Trip"?

Our Bhutan Air Airbus flew on to Bangkok.  We landed at noon and we spent much time in immigration and then found our hotel room at the airport.  Silja and I spent a spa day there, ironing out nearly worthless muscles from our 1600 foot ascent to the Tiger’s Nest, witch was actually a 2000 foot ascent and then a 750 step decent, and 210 step ascent to this important religious and cultural landmark in Bhutan.

We wasted our Thai baht on food and drink, massages, and only spent time with one other member of our tour.  We slept in soft beds.  The Thai Buddhists unlike the Bhutan Buddhists believe that a rock does not make a good pillow nor a board a good bed.  Our flight to Narita Tokyo left at 7 and took five hours.  We flew over the hills of Vietnam, where to many Americans died for nothing 50 years ago.  We flew over Taiwan, and then Okinawa, places possibly of wars future and of wars past.  It was hard to picture Okinawa as almost totally a city save for a mountain and a military base. 

I saw Yonaguchi by air, the mysterious island with so much underwater archeology no one wants to think about it is almost scary to me and educational malpractice.  In another life I would be there as a young man, finding answers to question no one wants to ask.  In two days I had seen Mt Everest and Fugi.

We arrived happily at Narita full of hope….not of life but of Udon Soup.  But things then would take a little diversion.  We did get the soup and it was superb but we were the first to come to our gate and we sat next to an abandoned backpack.  Similar abandoned backpacks in the Tokyo underground subway have killed many people.  To say that this was a suspicious backpack is an understatement. 

I whispered to Silja.  “That could be a bomb. Let’s move.”  Did I warn anyone?  No.  We just moved and actually went to eat our soup.   

By the time we were boarding, we were in a huge line to board fully 60% of the flight was zone 1, we were zone 2 and the plane was late for reasons unclear.  We found ourselves standing next to the cursed backpack, first with one security guard, then a second, pretty soon they were testing it for explosive residue.  It reminded me of Keystone Cops in action.  I was pretty sure that eventually either 1) it would blow or 2) they would evacuate the terminal.  They did 3) board the flight slowly, while security guard number 1 looked in fear. 

The 12 hour flight to Newark was quiet at least.  Our meals were served hurriedly, and we only had one beverage cart due to warnings of turbulence which did not seem that severe. We were forced to fly lower and faster to make up time which I was thinking would burn up fuel.  The range on a 777 is massive, somewhere near 8000 miles if I remember correctly.  One of the reasons the Malaysian plane disappeared was that it can fly forever.  Our flight was at somewhere in the mid 6500 mile range, and at times our ground speed was pushing 700 mph with the tailwind, but still…..As it looked like we had made up the hour delay we started something odd, we began to circle Albany NY, once twice, thrice and then we darted dead south, then west a little.  You may not know geography but, Newark is NOT that direction.  “Well, we are down to our fuel reserves and due to traffic at Newark we are being diverted to…Philadelphia.”  The pilot said.  It was also weird that we never heard the same pilot.  There was also a rumor this was a training flight for new pilots.  Over Trenton, I told my wife….

“We are going to Philly.”  She gave me the look like I was insane.  I was not.

I watched the descent thinking we were coming in a little hot, but I am just the passenger in 22B, but one with a million odd miles.  I have done Philly before, swing around Camden, go over the river and land.  I generally hate Philly airport, but tonight I would possibly hate it more since it was NOT a United hub and stranded in Philly?  OMG!

The wheels hit like a car hits a big and deep pot hole, jarring and with a bounce, our wing tipped quite a bit down, we bounced harder a second time and then, I felt the pilot floor it.  “Shit!” I muttered.  I had been on a previous aborted landing. From my too many flights here I knew we were at about 50-60% of the runway length by now and Philly has a long runway.  My stomach would soon be in my throat as I pondered if we had enough space.  I saw the end lights about thirty feet below us as the huge plane struggled to gain altitude.  I sighed relief, but there were things going on.  

We began the circle of shame.  The circle of shame we did at Midway once when a plane decided to sneak across the runway while my plane was landing was fast and tight, almost something from a stunt show.  It was nuts.  This one was leisurely, and around the entire city, like we were sight seeing.  The voice from the cockpit was mumbled and vague, what had happened?  “We did not like our approach” was the only thing said.  Did we have enough gas for another 40 mile joyride? What if we failed that?  What was really wrong?

So, we came in for it again.  At 3000 feet when I knew we were going committed, I said "I love you" to Silja and told her "it had been a fun ride."  I did not want to die on a United plane, but it seemed a possibility.  At the office I had written “When in doubt do NOT fly United” as a rule.  I had ignored the rule here.  Was this bad Karma?  We held hands, I tucked my head into hers and waited.  Covered my face with my pillow and prayed.  Would it be a crash or life?

Going to Bhutan was somewhat of a spiritual journey, but my spirit was not ready for a journey.  Well, the plane landed quite calmly, actually.  No one clapped.  In Midway, everyone clapped and those of us who stayed were given free drinks.  Here, we got some chips (I think) with writing in Japanese.  We went to the end of the runway and the plane sat for 2 hours.  They fueled her and waited, we would be leaving in ten minutes for 10 times.  I was happy to be on the ground, though, anywhere even in Philly.  I meant we had not died

We eventually flew off to Newark.  Our connection was long gone due to us being 4 hours late, when we arrived.  The plane somehow thought we were Flight 1 from Frankfurt on that leg, we were not on the luggage board,  and we meandered our way to a hotel and crashed, to sleep not the bus.  Our son in Germany woke us from a text to check if we were still alive at 2am which was 9 his time.  4AM today brought us up, back to the airport and on a flight to Tampa.  This flight seemed mundane, well until we landed and the plane braked hard like none of us needed to know what had laid ahead of us.  As we taxied to the runway, shaking a little Silja got a text that one or more of her luggage was enroute on a different plane.  Despite this, all three pieces came off the carousel.  Our friend Ric picked us up and got us to the RV, and the RV never felt so good.

Somewhere along the way we saw and ad about travel.  “Travel….because you don’t have to.”  I found that a funny slogan and now it almost seems to be a proverb, maybe we have traveled too much, at least we are alive.

The trip was 23000 air miles at 8 different airports.  As I said, we should have gone east instead of west but well, it was an epic journey few get to do, and maybe, just maybe few should do.  

I will post an extensive trip summary tomorrow as I have thousands of pictures to process, and some to hopefully find.

Yes, WE ARE ALIVE!

Olaf  

CAMP CEMENT

This is not a bird trip organized for sissies.  Seeing the King aside, this seems like work.  The typical day is up at 0530, load up out birding by 6am, and we bird until nightfall.  The days are long and tiring, but we've seen a lot of birds.  After a few days moving around from hotel to hotel, all rather simple affairs, we went camping, as were we went, there were barely roads and even fewer hotels.

After two nights in a tent out in a dry rice field, we moved to the Indian border and stayed in more secure tent on a platform.

As we birded at the second site, the support crew went ahead of us to scout for a place to camp, unfortunately in Nganglam, there were little flat areas, and the place they had used before was used for construction, as we ate lunch that day, we still did not know where we would be staying.  We ate lunch in the parking lot of a Buddhist Crematorium of all places.  There was fresh wood, but it was not currently being used.

Not sure what was in the box in the prayer room nor what the nearly or naked women meant, and frankly we were afraid to ask too much.
 Our lunches are impromptu affairs done in the middle of the road sometimes, the food excellent, the locations...unique.
The Bathrooms, well, ? primative?

We drove through Nganglam without truly sure what we would expect to spend the night.  This is a small city on the border filled with trucks from the cement plan

North of town we saw our cook standing on the side of the road and we turned into someone's house. So using ingenuity, the support crew had spied a location flat enough to camp in, but it turned out to be the backyard of the CEO of the local plastic bag manufacturer, for the huge cement plant across the street.  He was the interim CEO of that 600 person plant.
Somehow he said yes, and we set up tents and camped out in his backyard.  The support crew even dug portable outhouses in his garden

But the location had issues, besides the backyard being small
We had to eat on their porch

The View from the backyard was the cement factory going 24/7, particulate ash fell on our tents and the large Indian trucks carrying the cement away grinded up the incline below us.

Then the owners showed up and it did not appear as though the wife and the two children had got the message that the birding group had taken over their backyard, but they made us drinks and ate with us and told us their stories.  Wife center, husband center right next to the two children.

Out group, local birding expert Dodji, and the host family

And....the stray dogs living on the street below barked, all night.  The only thing louder than the cement factory, oh and the owners now had only one dog as a leopard had taken their second dog a few weeks back...from their back yard.  The owner decided it was best to leave the yard light on, and put in a new bulb before bedtime.

There were birds in this backyard....

Best look at Red Headed trogan
white throated kingfisher

We survived the night.  There were no leopard attacks but no one got a good sleep, and by morning my mouth tasted like it had burnt metal in it.  The hosts were nice but Nganglam needed some environmental help.  We named the place Camp Cement.

We soon forgot about Camp Cement as we drove on a new road carved into the cliff of the mountains and in many places had had rock slides from the monsoon blocking it and now the debris flattened to drive over the top of.  I was afraid to look over.  Even the bridge between sections of thecrazy road was scary.  We we met trucks I had to close my eyes and hope. We survived and I guess it was all in great fun....

So we did see some birds Common hawk cuckoo
Crested kingfisher
Himalayan prinia
ibisbill
siberian stonechat
Ultra hard to see Slender billed scimitar-babbler
Yellow billed blue magpie

This is just some of the birds, more to come and even more adventure to come, Bhutan.....interesting place, Kings, CEOs and luckily no leopards.
Olaf

The King and I

A lot of odd things happen to me on adventures big and small.  Uncommon things happen, and even things named like the common green magpie (above) are hardly common and even seeing them is uncommon as they hide in the forest.  Take this 19 day trip to Bhutan, a small country on the northeastern edge of India on the southern flank of the Himalayas. It is a birding trip and what could possibly go weird on a birding trip?  Who would have thought I’d possibly insult the king…let a lone meet him

There are just a few things to remember when meeting His Highness, the King of Bhutan.  First, don’t take a picture.  Secondly, remove ones hat, and well, I guess there are others, but I was not told of any more.  I was never going to meet the king, so why would it matter?

So here we are birding one fine morning in Manas Royal Bhutanese Park, along the Indian border when who should come heading down the forlorn road we were birding on, but the King of Bhutan and his entourage.  What does Olaf instinctively do, snap a picture.

note the kings license plate is just "Bhutan"

We kind of figured we'd see then parade of cars on the way back since they had taken over the reserve lodge and kept us from crossing the river and the King had a function at the Buddhist temple in the little town near us.

So we kept birding and it was getting hot so we moved in the bus for a moment, to cool down and then the pilot car came around the corner, and the bus stopped and out bounded Olaf to bird and get a better view of the King's Jeep, the only American made car I have seen on this trip so far.

So, around the bend comes the king’s car and it stops!  The driver rolls down the window (they drive on the left here and the king is in the other side passenger side of the Jeep).  He leans over and asks me.  “Seen any good birds?”  The King talking to ...me!

At that moment, I had nothing to say, yes, Olaf was totally speechless.  I pulled out of it quickly. I literally forced out, “We’ve seen Scarlet minivets…..” Scarlet minivets I think to myself, where did that come from? I also force out, “and lots of hornbills.”  I then add, “but luckily, no tigers.”

“There was one on the other side of the park.”  The king responds to my addition.

“They can keep it over there.”  I snark. 

“What do you think of Bhutan?”  He asks.

“Wonderful country.”  I say.  What could I say?

“Thanks for visiting us.”  He concludes and the window goes up, and I see the foot go back in the car from the backseat of who I suppose now was a security guard ready to pounce should I do anything odd.

He drives off and I turn around to the pack of the other birders, including lead birder, Aaron Lang.  "You didn't take your hat off Olaf!"  I did not even turn back around to see the queen go by and the two princes.  I smacked myself on the head for being ...an idiot.

And minivets......smart looking birds but...that was the best bird? Female scarlet minivet
male scarlet minivet

The hornbills are more regal birds, we have seen three species...

The great hornbill (above) is a heck of a bird, and we had seen two that day but well, the story was a bit lost from all of the excitement
We have seen some sights and to be honest part of Bhutan, few see.  We are the second birding group in by three days to have been in the country in three years due to COVID.  The locals are waving, and one guy stopped the bus and gave us a basket of oranges.
The collared owlet was even being showy.
As of this moment, an update, I have seen 256 lifers on this trip and more to go.I am still getting razzed about my King story and I am unsure how I got to be the spokesman of the group, but Olaf being Olaf, Johnny on the spot that I sometimes am, who else would it be?
I think I will do 5x7s of the two birds I mentioned and send a note of apology to the King, we'll see how that goes.  Tomorrow I hope to report from "Camp Cement" a tale that well, involves a corporate CEO, his back yard, making an outhouse in his garden, and a cement plant, but food is soon ready and the bird list must be discussed and I have a frogmouth to find tonight...
Rest assure Olaf and Silja are alive and well in Asia, and the King has hopefully forgotten about my breach of etiquette 
Olaf

One Night in Bangkok....

Two hours to Houston, 14 to Tokyo, just under 8 hours more to Bangkok, plus associated transit times, ground delays, the International Dateline, a cab ride and we were there.  We left at 4AM Sunday from our RV north of Tampa.  We arrived in our hotel room at 0115 on Tuesday.  But where was there?  A hotel called the Novatell.  In it all I made two mistakes.  First, after a string of surprisingly good movies, I got my sleep well, and was entertained so that was not it.  The first mistake, it turned out was I (well we), went west, we should have gone east. I was doing the math in My head.  Tampa to London, London to Bangkok.....I went 13 time zones west, that leaves 11 east.....crap

The other mistake, was worse, I ate the United Air egg thing for breakfast......the last United Air egg thing I ate on our way to St. Thomas in 2002, led to Salmonella, and 2 decades of funny stories, and me spending a night on a beach hoping for a tidal wave, or a lucky meteor strike...anything....this one.....

Well, Salmonella takes a while....I had that one night in Bangkok, then we were off to Pattaya area 60 miles south to get over the jet lag in a place that was sort of maybe is where 1985 Orient Beach St Martin FWI meets, well an Icelandic spa, not the tourist ones near Keflavik, no the ones tourists rarely find, with the lady shower monitor in the showers making sure everything that is supposed to be washed is, and where they skimped on dressing and locker rooms. (as why would you have two?) because then you plunge into great designed baths. Here at Dragonfly, it is a great place just carved out of a swamp......

But as you are trying to find the correct and even better description you realize that nothing is making sense as you now have a fever of 103, are sitting out in 95 degree weather, and suddenly The Revenge of United Airlines hits you like a rock......

Yea, there is Montezuma's Revenge, but there is something worse, much worse, I call it United's Revenge....sigh.  

It was bad, I moaned, I threw everything we had with at it, the badger that was gnawing  its way out of me in three directions was not a full size one, but big enough to leave lasting scars.  I had dreams of being attacked by a hawk on some island well past New Zealand, who was somehow mad at me for saving a dog.  It was a Yorkshire terrier and I do not even like them.  Then there was some car ride, left and right right and left, and OMG, I woke up but I was still moving...I even dreamed I was having abdominal pain, but when I woke up, the real pain was worse!  I might have even converted to a different religion, but well, does that count during desperate times?  I also gave up beer.  Through it all, I survived.  

They could not make Thai food bland enough for my destroyed taste buds.  I ate a smoothie the first day and the banana flavor tasted like a pine tree.  Day two involved a quest for something that tasted correct, I ate a sausage that tasted like a moth ball, and grain, can I get some grain?  They offered my some pork infused porridge.....today, I gave up and drank beer (more on that later).  I am happy to report, beer, tastes like beer.....it is not good beer, but it is beer, good ole beer.

I birded from the deck of a pool with naked people sauntering past me while I randomly  called out works like flowerpecker, Milky stork, ashy drongos, Germain swiftlets, and bee-eaters to people, who did not understand me and it was not always a language barrier.  I have called out worse bird names when I was more lucid, but they do not know that.  So calling a guy a flowerpecker...I'll skip that.

Today, We walked off the reservation and got a few photos

The road into this nice little village, built 2 years ago, and open to adventurous souls willing to enjoy something not that common in Asia, unfortunately cameras are verboten, but I will probably write a travel article on it for a magazine so the marketing guy will share some stuff later
The Scarlet backed flowerpecker, not a slur!
Great myna
Asian green bee-eater
We have kind of been a menace birding here. Stirring up dogs. Stopping traffic, today, one guy either said, "Welcome to Thailand" or "Get the F#^k off my land" honestly, I was just 10 feet off the road and Don H and me argued about exactly which he said.  I think he was not so welcoming.  Don says he was being king and friendly...

We did end up on another guy's property, who invited us for cocktails, as long as we told hockey stories.  His name was Brad.  He assured me, that any pledge made while febrile about alcohol is non-binding, so he handed me a beer.  All is apparently right with the world on that front, but like I said, we may have new holidays to celebrate.

There is some snake with poison and venom.  Dengue fever, all kinds of crap and well, all that lying near death by the pool thing now means the Scarlet backed flowerpecker and me got something in common and let just say it is the color of red.

 I say we are in Pattaya, we are only close to Pattaya, Pattaya is a weird place, I cannot handle Pattaya.  The innuendo in the movie "Hangover" is closer more to Pattaya than Bangkok.  Today we had to go into the city to replenish our reserves of anti-e coli, and Salmonella medications, God, Allah, or Buddha knows what is in store for us in Bhutan, and the other couple we are traveling with needed a tweezers.   We pack light and have simple needs.  What can I say?     

An article in the British tabloid the Daily Mirror once described Pattaya as "the world's sex capital", a "modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah". This provoked anger from government officials as high up as Prime Minister, and the Pattaya police superintendent, who both denied that Pattaya is a sex trade paradise. Upset about the British media's stories, he insisted they were fabricated. "There is no such thing as prostitution in Pattaya," said Col Apichai. "Where did they get the figure of 27,000 sex workers in Pattaya? Anyone can make up this information....Thai ladies having sex with foreigners is their personal issue. If they like each other, I don't see anything wrong with what they do behind closed doors." In response, Pattaya social worker Surang Janyam, the director of Service Workers IN Group Foundation, said that estimated number of Pattaya prostitutes published in the Daily Mirror is inaccurate: "27,000 sex workers in Pattaya is way too low. We have a lot more sex workers than that." In June 2019, over twenty high ranking Police, Army and Local government officers toured Pattaya and reported the central streets safe and free from illegal activities.

Pattaya is a Minneapolis sized city on a big flat beach, (which has been closed due to raw sewage being leaked on it a few times, oh and then there was the Monkey riot of 2020...

We walked past money exchanging madness, brothel shops filled with 30 or 40 prostitutes, prostitutes on scooters, prostitutes hanging with school kids and it was not even 5 PM yet, apparently the crazies really gets going at 7PM.  We got picked up at 530, you could loose a body part down there, or them monkeys.  We got two boxes of antibiotics and a tweezers, and were safely out of town.  We lead a sheltered life, (well okay).  At 7PM I was safely in the confines of our little "village" having my single gin and tonic for the night, Silja was out cold by 8, and I am typing this listening for nightjars.
I did leave Pattaya with a question.  Mucalinda, a 9 headed serpent thing (Naga) came to protect Buddha after his enlightenment.  I am not sure why he would need protection after enlightenment but that is another question for another day.  But you offer Mucalinda, Red Fanta flavored soda?Not Coke, not Grape Nehi, even the Fanta Orange.....just this really crappy red stuff, and not just here, the only soda I saw offered to the being at any temple was Red Fanta....
We are staying put with the blissful tranquil spot interrupted with the squeal of a newly slaughtered pig (a hog butchering facility is next door).  Or the organic delivery scooter. Look at that, locally grown, organic, and individually wrapped in plastic.....got to love it
  So, a bit disjointed and weird, but I have been ill.
31 lifers for both of my lists (you know what lists), should get some more, then off to Bhutan next week
Olaf

Go with Godwit

Chasing birds in addictive.  I have a funeral at the end of the week, half a continent away, and we are going to Asia birding on Sunday for a month, and I don't know why, but I went birding today.  Why? I guess because I have never seen a bar-tailed godwit in the lower 48 states.  Why else why?  because it is plover madness down at Ft DeSoto this time of year, and why else why?  My wife went with me, since what else do I (we) have to do?  I guess I do have things to do, I am literally writing 3 books right now, and well....I guess I went because I could.

What is a bar-tailed Godwit, a bird I see in and around Nome, doing in western Florida?  On their way to migration points....no.

Those Nome birds winter in New Zealand. Today's bar-tailed godwit seemed to have fleas, was doing some serious preening and scratching

The Godwits we see in Florida this time of year are Marbled Godwits, which are bigger and are the ones from my back yard in South Dakota.  They head south to the coast, really any coast, Baja, Texas, South Carolina, Here. Marbled godwit Ft DeSoto
But for a Bar-tailed godwit down here is a good bird, not a super rare thing, they see one or two it seems every year but I just have not chased one.  Today, chase I did.  

It was easy to find, very near where I always bird and where we typically park the car, and unload the bikes.  Today, I drove my bike up to the lagoon, shot photos and....GOT YELLED AT FOR DRIVING MY BIKE ON THE BEACH.  Okay, rules at DeSoto.  No...dogs, no covered license plates, BBQs, vendors, picnic tables, nudity, and apparently bikes on the beach, only two of which had signs to that matter...I'd say I should read the signs but I did not see any signs.
Well, I went plover watching, plover madness was evident.....five plover species and none were even killdeers.  All were easily seen.  It is always a good tutorial down there and almost always I see too many Piping Plovers for eBird.  I get emails, snide remarks, and questions, too many questions.  All of which I ignore, Ft DeSoto does not always bring out the best in me.  Rules....yea....
Winter plovers are not always easy....So let the review begin....Olaf's bad tutorial for plover madness month.
Black bellied plovers, big, like willet big, thick bill, no black belly this time of year, more of a beach  shore bird, but this one was at the lagoon 
Piping plover, small, very light plover, almost color of sand, black bill, orange-yellowish legs, band on front of neck does NOT meet.
Semipalmated plover, band meets on neck, a little orange usually on base of bill, but the piping bill and semipalms bill look almost identical from shape and size, yellowish legs, typically darker than pipings, but not always 
Snowy plover.  This bird seems to always be more upright in posture.  Bill longer and thinner than a piping and semipalm, legs are gray to dark, no band in front, like piping.  White forehead, which looks different to me from piping but basically the same,  Where other plovers will chase the waves, it seems I see snowy's up higher on the beach and not infrequently in a little bowl they have made or found, like this one today.  Almost missed this one.
Wilson's plover has a T. Rex look about them, they just look angry and mean, while pipings and semipalms look nervous..  They have a huge bill, dark legs, usually a complete band in front, darker like semipalms
I saw 150 plovers today.  They guess there are 12-13000 piping plovers in the world, 30-35K snowy plovers, and maybe just 10,000 Wilson's plovers.  I've seen over 100 of both Wilson's and Piping plovers on this stretch of beach or in two small tidal ponds.  It is the place to go, and whether eBird likes my counts or not, I do not care.....I'm just a bad birder down here.
There are over a million bar-tailed godwits on this planet and 1/10 of that number of marbled godwits for comparison, and although these 3 plovers are much more scarce as they say....location location location....but if you bird and come to Florida, stop by here and see the little guys, and may, just maybe, a bar-tailed godwit or something else strange may be around.  Ft DeSoto is a nice beach to just soak up the sun and some cool birds.
Olaf

Honeycreeper Madness

I will just write a brief note.  I am drinking my lifer beer for bird number 820, wow, 820 birds....who'd have ever thunk?  Even with a bit of a rash of exotics, some of which I still have to tally, but it is still something good.  Today's addition was the red-legged honeycreeper

After Ian blew through, luckily sparing our camping site in Land O Lakes Florida, honeycreepers began to show up in the Keys, Miami, the Everglades, Sabine Woods in Texas, Grand Isle LA, and most recently in Jupiter and Delray Beach Florida. A friend of mine called it Honeycreeper madness.

I saw these reports and as we cruised into Tampa last weekend, I figured I'd head south right away, but the Key West honeycreepers moved north, then north again and finally I just decided to go this morning after Brunch at the local Buddhist temple.  I had no more excuses, I had to go over and see one.  One may never have an opportunity like this again.

It was an uneventful four hour trek to the Atlantic side of Florida.  Orchard Park was full of families and then as I was putting on my camera, the only birder there put me on a glimpse of the target.  It took me another hour and a half to get photos.

One could hope for gorgeous blue males in breeding plumage but I never figured on seeing honeycreepers in the USA, so I'll take green ones, immature males and females all day long.

I settled for a male black-throated blue warbler to give me that blue color for the afternoon in Delray Beach 
                               

So I got my bird, I'm drinking my lifer Grain Belt I had in the refrigerator and getting ready for a big birding trek to Asia next weekend

Cheers!

Olaf