Ornithologists on my way

 

 

 

 

The meetings in our club were very unconventional. This is obvious from Jens Gregersen’s drawing above, which (maybe a bit exaggerated) shows a meeting in 1971. To the left our chairman, Hans-Ulrik Jensen, in the front row from left Knud Pedersen (presented below), Karsten Haug, Ulf Roed, Mogens Damm, Søren Højager (presented below), and myself, 2nd row Finn Lund Henriksen, Flemming Christensen, and Jörn Eskildsen (all presented below), and on Jörn’s knee Erling ‘Pablo’ Sørensen, standing Peter Thomsen, at the rear from left Georg Guldvang, Hans Pinstrup, Vagn Pedersen, and Henning Lykke Larsen.

I would like to thank Jens Gregersen for permission to use many of his drawings on this page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I visited him and his wife at their home in Thy in 1997 and 2022, and we also met by chance on the Swedish island Gotland in 1997.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1989, he and I, together with Thomas Bregnballe and Lars Nørgaard Hansen (both presented below), were sent to Tanzania by the Danish section of ICBP (International Council for Bird Preservation, today BirdLife International) to count wintering waders, and to ring birds in coastal forests.

Sadly, Jens died in 2012, only 50 years old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the trip was going to start at 4 A.M., I expected some, especially among the girls, to stay away, but everybody showed up! A couple of the girls were wearing shoes. Wagner, as we called him, just laughed and said that they would surely get their feet wet. Off we went on our long trip, and everybody endured. On this trip, Bent and I, and another of our class mates, Peter Stougaard (presented below), became interested in birds in earnest, and in the following years we often went birding together.

Later, we went our separate ways, but Bent and I met again in 2017, when we made a nostalgic trip to Hørret Skov – a place we had visited many times back in the 1960s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In eastern Nepal, we managed to observe the colourful fire-tailed myzornis (Myzornis pyrrhoura). Jørgen says: “We regarded this bird as an icon. A mega target species. High up in the forest in Upper Mai Valley it descended to us from heaven – well, canopy, at least. There were two of them, settling in the bushes near the ground. We were happy. Birdwatchers are sometimes rewarded with moments like this.”

A picture of fire-tailed myzornis is shown on the page Animals – Birds: Birds in the Himalaya.

Jørgen’s spiritual home is Thy, northern Jutland. As a child, he spent every summer in his grandparents’ home, and learned the local dialect. The winters were spent in Copenhagen with his parents. Jørgen has told me that his friends in Copenhagen made fun of his Jutland dialect, and his friends in Thy made fun of him, when he spoke Copenhagen dialect. So he quickly learned to switch from one to the other. Jørgen still visits Thy, and every summer he helps his family with the harvest, using an ageing Claas combine harvester.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since then, we often met in Denmark, and we made a trip together to Scotland and Wales in 1992. Later we went our separate ways, and for many years now Frederik has been living in Brazil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 2021, Thorkil received an honorary reward from Dansk Ornitologisk Forening (Danish Ornithological Society) for his effort against construction of eight 150-metre-tall windmills at Tjele Langsø – an area, which a threatened population of about 2,500 taiga bean geese (Anser fabalis ssp. fabalis) is dependent on in winter. His effort had the effect that permission to build the windmills was not given.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When our work had been completed, Thomas, Ib, and I went on a safari trip in northern Tanzania.

In 1989, Thomas and I were both members of a new expedition to coasts and coastal forests of Tanzania, in which also Jens Bagger (presented above) and Lars Nørgaard Hansen (presented below) participated. Afterwards, Thomas, Lars, and I went on a long safari trip in northern Tanzania and Kenya.

Thomas became a biologist, and today he is the foremost Danish expert on gulls, terns, and the great cormorant. He has often hired me to do odd jobs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the following years, we often went on trips together in the neighbourhood of Århus, especially at Lake Brabrand, where we ringed birds together with Jens Gregersen and Jörn Eskildsen (both presented below), and Erling ‘Pablo’ Sørensen.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, we spent long periods together in Nature Reserve Vorsø, Horsens Fjord, where he became an expert ringer of cormorant chicks.

Flemming was killed in a traffic accident August 1984.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

”Are you the one watching birds?”

“Yes.”

”And you have planned to go to Iraq by car?”

“Yes.”

”Can I join you?”

In this way, I was acquainted with Arne, who, as it turned out, was a fellow birdwatcher. In the following years, we undertook two long journeys by car to Asia, related in depth on several Travel episodes pages on this website, see Syria & Iraq 1972: “Welcome to Baghdad!”; Iraq 1973: The hospitable mudir; Iraq 1973: Dust storm and sheep’s head; Iran 1973: In the mountains of Luristan; Iran & Turkey 1973: “Kurdistan! Bum-bum-zip!”; and Pakistan 1978: Encounter with robbers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helge once related a summer trip he and his girlfriend had made to Swedish Lappland to watch birds. Everything drowned in rain, and to avoid lying in a swamp they had to dig small canals to lead the rainwater around their tent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the late 1970s, Jörn was working on a thesis on breeding mute swans on the island of Klægbanken, Ringkøbing Fjord, Jutland, where I accompanied him several times as an assistant. In 1981, we both worked as bird watchers in Nature Reserve Vorsø, Horsens Fjord, and during a period in the 1990s, I lived with him and his wife Pia on their farm north of Horsens.

In later years, the couple has managed an art gallery, Galleri Esk, with focus on nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In December 1988, John and I flew to Nairobi and on to the Comoro Islands, where we were supposed to wait for the boat we had used during our counts of coastal birds the previous winter (see Experiencing African bureaucracy). However, the boat was wrecked on a reef in Mozambique, and we had to return to Nairobi, and from there travel to Dar es Salaam. Together, we made a trip to Gombe Stream Reserve to see the chimpanzees there.

In 1990, John and I participated in a new expedition to Tanzania, together with Frederik Brammer and Torbjørn Eriksen (both presented above). We were sent to Tanzania by the Danish section of ICBP (International Council for Bird Preservation, today BirdLife International) to investigate bird life in coastal forests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I visited Eddie once in his home near Copenhagen, where he showed me his unique collection of bird rings from all over the world, and also his collection of bird craniums. As I was writing an article about cranes, he lent me a picture, taken of him when he, during the summer 1990, participated in a Russian expedition to the Daursky Nature Reserve, southeast of Lake Baikal, near the border to Mongolia. The purpose of the expedition was to catch and ring moulting cranes, especially white-naped cranes (Antigone vipio) and hooded cranes (Grus monacha). Eddie had brought about a hundred coloured and numbered plastic rings, intended for cormorants, and as the Russians until then hadn’t produced any of these rings, they invited him to participate.

Eddie’s interest in bird rings arose when he, as a boy, roamed the large garbage dump along the east coast of Amager. In those days, all kinds of garbage was just dumped in the garbage dump, and as there were many usable things to be found, a number of people, including Eddie, were scavenging the area. He noticed that some of the herring gulls, trudging around in seach of edibles, were wearing a ring around one leg. These rings allured him, and he thought a lot about how to get hold of them.

Then he got a brilliant idea. He put on some old clothes and working gloves, put a paper sack over his head with two peepholes for the eyes, and then dug himself down among some garbage, strewing some old bread in front of him. The bread was soon discovered by the gulls, and when a bird wearing a ring came close to Eddie, he grabbed it, twisted its neck, and took off the ring.

He now discovered that an address was written on the rings and became curious as to where the birds came from. He wrote to the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, with information about his finds. At the museum, the staff soon began wondering why this Eddie Fritze found so many dead gulls in the garbage dump, so they invited him to a conversation in the museum.

Naturally, the leader of the ringing department of the museum, Niels Otto Preuss, knew how matters stood, but instead of scolding Eddie for killing the gulls he asked him if he would be interested in putting the rings of the museum on those gulls, from which he removed foreign rings.

Eddie willingly obliged to do so, and this was the beginning of his life-long interest in ringing gulls, also with colour rings with engraved numbers which could be controlled by using a telescope.

One day, when Eddie, wearing a new pair of working gloves, lay buried in the garbage, waiting for gulls, one of the professional scavengers passed by. He noticed the brand new gloves and came directly towards them to pick them up. However, not only the glove, but also Eddie’s hand, was lifted, and behind his paper bag, Eddie exclaimed: “Don’t do that!” The man must have had something close to a heart attack, because he turned around and ran out of the garbage dump, full speed.

Eddie was famous in wide circles for his garbage dump story, and when he participated in an ornithological congress in South Africa, he was asked to relate his story for the entire assembly, who was roaring with laughter.

Eddie’s collection of bird craniums was also the cause of an anecdote. He told me that to remove as much meat as possible from the bones, the cranium must be boiled for some time before being buried in an ant hill, so that the ants can remove the last remains. His mother forbade him to boil the ill-smelling craniums inside the house, so it had to take place in the garden. One day, when Eddie was busy boiling a cranium, he heard the neighbour remark to his wife: “Pooh, I wonder what they are cooking for dinner next door?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was one of the pioneers in our local nature club in Århus. With his great intellect, his fantastic memory, and an outstanding biological knowledge, he was a shining light for other members of the club.

In a Danish obituary, Jens Gregersen (presented below) and I write the following:

Mogens was a great personality, who also showed a great deal of devotion – for instance towards the more unconventional types. It was always fantastic to meet him, or to join him on a trip. He displayed a devoutly peace, which spread to others.

Then there were the long-eared owls at Lake Brabrand in the winter time. When a meeting in the club was over, Mogens would get up, slap the binocular case, which was resting on his hip, and say: ”Hmmm. Does anyone care to join me tomorrow evening to watch owls?” There were usually several volunteers, because it was always a pleasure to join him on a trip and suck up his knowledge. With his organizational talent, he placed us on various posts around the forest, in which a number of owls were roosting, and we had to note when they left the roost, and in which direction, while he himself was standing in the middle of a field, pointing his lightmeter into the air. Those were evocative winter evenings, and you never knew for sure how the owls would behave.

In the summer 1965, Torben Hviid Nielsen, Knud Pedersen (presented below), and I (KH) had the pleasure of sharing two weeks with Mogens around Nissum Fjord, western Jutland, and in the summer 1969, Finn Lund Henriksen (presented below), my brother Leif, and I spent two weeks with Mogens on the Faroe Islands. He had promised Boy Overgaard Nielsen at Aarhus University to collect mosquitoes and crane flies. However, the jar he had brought was only half full of alcohol, and when we arrived back home, all the legs of the animals had fallen off and stuck to the sides of the jar.

In the winter 1968-1969, we participated in a trip to Skåne, southern Sweden. We went by ferry from Århus to Copenhagen, and then with another ferry to Malmö, from where we went on bicycle 30 km to a hut on the shore of Lake Fjällfotasjön. Those were fantastic winter days with snow and frost, ice on the lakes, and many eagles, which were not a common sight where we came from. On New Year’s eve, we held a small party, and Mogens, wearing his green rain jacket and rubber boots, with his binocular case resting on his hip, and a beer in his hand, performed an impressive cossack dance in front of the oven in the livingroom – a merry sight!

In 1989, Mogens visited us in Vorsø Nature Reserve, and he entertained us with tales from Brazil, researching the respiration of reptiles. He and his colleagues went to the great marsh area Pantanal to catch caimans, which they brought back to the lab. I asked him if they were not difficult to catch, but he merely said: ”No, they are plain stupid. At night you shine a flashlight into their eyes, and then you throw yourself upon them.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1974, we worked as ornithologists together in Nature Reserve Tipperne, Ringkøbing Fjord, western Jutland. In the summer 1975, we made a trip by car to northern Jutland, and late in autumn the same year a similar trip to the Wadden Sea, all the way to Holland. That was a cold experience, as Jens described it in his diary: “Rain showers and silent rain and fog and mist and cold.” Therefore, we continued to France to heat up our bum a bit.

In the 1980s and 1990s, we both worked long periods in Nature Reserve Vorsø, Horsens Fjord, Jens describing the life of the great cormorant, I as ornithologist and botanist. Later, Jens became caretaker of the island and has now been living there for about 40 years.

Throughout his adult life, Jens’s art work has resulted in several books (all in Danish), of which the first one, Tipperne – fugle langs den jyske vestkyst (‘Tipperne – birds along the west coast of Jutland’), was published in 1975. Among later works, I want to mention the excellent Årets ring – fuglene og landet (‘Circle of the year – the birds and the country’), published in 2008.

Between 2000 and 2020, Jens made numerous trips to Arctic areas, and his work here resulted in the beautiful book Arktisk sommer (‘Arctic summer’), published in 2014. In 2011, Max Nitschke (presented below) and I had the pleasure of accompanying him on one of his trips to the Chukotka Peninsula, eastern Siberia. This trip is described on the page Travel episodes – Siberia 2011: Caterpillar trip in Chukotka.

In his early years, Jens often made caricatures of his fellow members of our local club, see for instance the drawing at the top of this page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Niels was very cushy. I’ll never forget once he visited us on Vorsø, lying comfortably across three chairs in the kitchen. A young man, who had an errand on the island, came into the kitchen. He must have had a poor posture, because Niels, from his position across the chairs, exclaimed: “Straighten up, boy!”

Niels had a weak heart, and, sadly, he died already in 2008, only 69 years old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finn was very helpful every time we were updating our guide book, also when he changed job in 2000, and was now working at the new museum NaturBornholm. He is a mine of information when it comes to aspects concerning Bornholmian nature.

When Søren and I were no longer writing the guide book, I kept in contact with Finn, and I last met him in 2017, when he showed Uffe Gjøl Sørensen (presented below) and me around several excellent nature locations in northern Bornholm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He has published other books about the usage and administration of the nature in Denmark, including Der er et yndigt land, which describes the miserable condition of Danish nature. In 2008, he published Det tabte land – a historical work, describing the powers controlling Danish nature. This book was awarded by Dansk Forfatterforening (‘Society of Danish authors’).

Today, he owns the independent consulting firm BæreDygtighed, advising companies, institutions, and private people about adjusting to a sustainable production and consumption.

I first met Kjeld in our youth, when Jens Gregersen (presented above) and I visited him in his home in Ry, Jutland. In those days, he was known as Rabiaten fra Ry (‘The rabid from Ry’) due to his provocative, but always reasoned opinions about Danish policies on environment and hunting. He formed a group named Pugnax, whose members provoced by marching through the streets, throwing cormorants, which had been culled, left and right to create a debate about the miserable condition of the great cormorant in Denmark. Pugnax is Latin, meaning ‘inclined to fight’ – it is the specific name of the ruff, given with reference to the battles between males in spring.

Since then, Kjeld and I went our separate ways, but we met by chance in Nepal in 1985.

 

 

 

 

 

In April 1991, he and I undertook a month-long hike in Makalu-Barun National Park, eastern Nepal. Later, he made research in Nepal on the sprouting success of seeds of Indian rosewood (Dalbergia sissoo) from various locations, and I met him and his girlfriend Lise in Kathmandu in 1994. In the summer 1997, Lars, Lise, Lars Skipper, and I spent about two weeks, camping on the Swedish island Gotland.

Since then we have met regularly, often in the couple’s summer cottage on Mols, Jutland, and I have assisted him a couple of times during his work with registration of growth of forest trees in sample plots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We met in 1983, when he guided Jens Gregersen and Flemming Christensen (both presented above), and me around Vind Hede – last stand of the black grouse in Denmark. We went our separate ways, but met by pure chance on the island of Bornholm around 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

Jens and Niels accompanied me during a trip around Sri Lanka in December 1982 and January 1983. Two episodes from this trip are related on this website, see Travel episodes Sri Lanka.

In connection with his work at the folk high school, Jens gathered material for a book named Grøngødning og efterafgrøder (‘Green manure and cover crops’). He hired me to take pictures for the book of the various sprouting plants and their seeds.

Besides birds, Jens was very fond of jazz and played trombone in a jazz band with the unpretentious name Tante Tillies Fodvarmere (‘Aunt Tillie’s Foot Warmers’).

Sadly, he died of cancer in 2015, only 71 years old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I last met him in 2009, when he and his wife Hanne visited me on Funen. We went on several trips, including one to the island of Romsø, where a large flock of introduced fallow deer are living.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In January 1997, all four of us met in Zambia, and then spent a month touring Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana.

In Denmark, we met occasionally, for instance in June 1997, when we were touring northern Jutland for several days, together with Uffe. In 2011, all three of us went to southern Jutland, near Åbenrå, the only place in the country where you are able to observe the rare alpine newt.

All four travel members on the African trips met for Midsummer celebrations at Erling’s place in northern Zealand in 2009 (see picture below under Uffe Gjøl Sørensen).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our goal was the small town of Weining, where we met an acquaintance of Miss Li, biologist Li Ching, who made a great effort to protect a large flock of the threatened black-necked crane (Grus nigricollis), which spend every winter in the nearby marsh area Cao Hai (’Sea of Grass’), covering some 60 km². Among other initiatives, he succeeded in eliminating many of the draining canals along the shores of Cao Hai, and the marshes have slowly been reclaiming a number of former fields.

Accompanied by Li Ching, we toured the area around the town during the following days, described on the page Travel episodes – China 2009: Among black-necked cranes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In October 1993, we flew together to Cape Town in South Africa, where the Lomosse couple had friends, British ornithologist Jim Enticott and his wife Caz. Later we made a tour by car around Namibia.

Since then I have often visited the couple in their home on the island of Öland. Sadly, in the beginning of 2020, an examination of Hans showed that he had a brain tumor. He was succesfully operated, but has some complications, including a weakened immune system, and he very quickly gets tired. Due to the Covid epidemic, I haven’t visited them since 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I first met Peter on Christiansø in 1989, where I paid a visit to Jens Bagger (presented above). I remember very clearly that Peter came running into the field station, shouting: “Hell, there’s a green bee-eater sitting outside!” – This was the first observation of the species in Denmark.

In 1997, when Søren Lauridsen and I were hired to write a guide book about Bornholm, it was quite natural for me to look up Peter on Christiansø, and he was always very helpful giving information about birdlife on the island. We met regularly during the following years, last time in 2017.

Sadly, Peter died of cancer in 2019, only 66 years old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since then, we have only seen each other a few times. Today, he is the leading Danish expert regarding wild geese and has investigated geese populations in their breeding grounds in Greenland and on Svalbard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1994, the rector’s council at Copenhagen University made the statement that it is »indeed very rare and exceptional«, that a non-academic achieves a doctorate in biology. This statement was given, when Hans on May 19th achieved the degree through his dissertation Vadefugletrækket gennem Danmark (‘Migration of waders through Denmark’), without any scientific education, and even without attending high school.

Hans was educated as a radio technician, which gave him a job in north-eastern Greenland, where he acquired a life-long interest in Arctic birds.

Today he is editor of Dansk Ornitologisk Forenings Tidsskrift (Journal of the Danish Ornithological Society), to which he is an unrelenting producer of articles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then suddenly, one day in 1997, I got a call from his aunt who told me that Thorkild was in Denmark and would like to talk to me. He had noticed that I was consultant on a guide book titled Rejsen rundt i Indien (‘Travelling around India’). He was planning to move to India and had a lot of questions to ask me about the country. When he had left, he often wrote to me how he was faring. As it turned out, he found a wife, Magdalene, and had settled in the city of Mysore, Karnataka, South India.

I visited him here several times in the following years. He had bought a small piece of land outside the city, where he tried to grow Aloe vera and mango trees, with limited success. However, he had much pleasure from the area, catching and ringing a lot of birds there, and I often assisted him in this work.

He and his wife got a son, Daniel, but the marriage was not a happy one. They got divorced, and Thorkild found a new wife, Bindu. The last time I visited him was in 2008, when we went on a tour around Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. I have since lost connection with him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 2011, he and I accompanied Jens Gregersen (presented above) on one of his trips to the Chukotka Peninsula, eastern Siberia. This trip is described on the page Travel episodes – Siberia 2011: Caterpillar trip in Chukotka.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We kept in touch, and as we were both going to visit Indonesia in 1985, we arranged to meet. In those days, the usual method of contact was by poste restante, which means that you left a letter at a post office, with information of your whereabouts. We missed each other several times – either I and my companion Jette had just left, or Henrik had. Then we gave up.

On the island of Lombok, Jette and I arranged with a local man to paddle us to the islet Gili Air, but as we approached the shore, a young man came running into the water and slapped me on the shoulder – it was Henrik!

Since then we met on numerous occasions, and we often, rather jokingly, said that when he and his wife Pernille would find a permanent place to live, I was going to stay with them ‘in retirement’. They lived in central Copenhagen for some years, while Henrik was working on his thesis on the island of Amager, studying predation of lapwing nests. It was believed that the major part of the predation was done by crows, but Henrik’s studies showed that the main ‘sinner’ was the fox.

In 2004, the couple bought a farm in eastern Funen, and he and I now began making a home for me in a small building, made from cut granite boulders. It had formerly functioned as a pig sty, and later a furnace had been installed there. Inside the building, everything had been blackened by smoke, and there was an ugly concrete roof, which I spent some time hammering to pieces. This was hard work, and even though it was November, I was just wearing trousers and T-shirt. When the lady from across the road passed by to leave a message, she was amazed, saying: “Are you sitting here in T-shirt?”

The house stood ready in 2005, and I have been living here ever since.

Henrik couldn’t find a permanent job and began working with terrazzo, but then got a job in the army, supervizing nature areas, which were protected according to paragraph this-and-that. This went smoothly for some years, but then all his proposals were turned down by the management. This was very unsatisfactory, so Henrik applied for other jobs. He was lucky to get a job with Naturstyrelsen (Board of Nature), and today he is working with the establishment of Nature National Park Thy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I visited Knud a couple of times in his home in Skagen, in 1975 and 1996.

In July 1975, Knud, Eigil Olesen, and I spent two weeks in southern Norway, including the bird island Runde. One day we met an unusually tame sheep, which rubbed its head on us in a cuddly way, and then, when we turned our back, pushed me from behind, so I tumbled headlong into the grass. Knud and Eigil were tickled pink from laughter. The animal was a ram!

In 2018, Knud received an honorary reward from Dansk Ornitologisk Forening (Danish Ornithological Society) for his multifarious effort in communication and protection of bird life in northern Jutland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In spring 1980, he and I went to northern India and Nepal, and we also met in northern India in winter 1985-1986 (see Travel episodes – India 1986: “His name is Muhammed!”).

In January 1988, together with Thomas Bregnballe (presented above) and Ole Thorup (presented below), we were sent to Tanzania by the Danish section of ICBP (International Council for Bird Preservation, today BirdLife International). The aim of the expedition was to count wintering Palaearctic birds along the coast of Tanzania. Our troubles on this trip are related in detail on the page Travel episodes – Tanzania 1988: Experiencing African bureaucracy.

Since then, we have often seen each other, and in June 1999 I had the pleasure of spending a month together with Ib and his family in Iceland, where he had spent long periods since his youth, and had almost been adopted by the family Kjartansson, who owned a farm near Akureyri. He was also much involved in locating breeding pairs of gyr falcons

In later years, he and his Icelandic colleagues have been monitoring the winter movements of red-necked phalarope, red-throated diver, and various ducks via data loggers. In Denmark, he is responsible for surveying seabird populations in those areas, where it has been planned to establish windmill parks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was also our driver during an expedition to Tanzania in 1993, with a safari afterwards. In December 1994-January 1995, Uffe Gjøl Sørensen (presented below), Jørgen Bech (presented above), Solveig Schjørring, and I hired him as a driver during a month-long tour in northern Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He got my attention in earnest, when he related a hike that his uncle once undertook to a nature reserve in the Himalaya, called Nanda Devi Wildlife Sanctuary, named after the highest mountain in Garhwal, Nanda Devi (7816 m) – originally the name of a Hindu goddess. The only way to visit this sanctuary was to hike up the narrow Rishi Ganga Valley.

Ajai planned to go there himself, and he kindly invited me to join him. I at once throught that this would be an interesting hike for an American friend of mine, John Burke, whom I had met in Nepal in 1978 (see Travel episodes – India & Nepal 1978: Journey towards Everest). In October 1982, we all undertook a very interesting, but tough hike in the Nanda Devi Sanctuary, described on the page Travel episodes – India 1982: Pleasures of Nanda Devi.

On my later journeys to India I usually visited Ajai, who had married Madhu around 1985. He had completed his education as a forester, and the couple lived in Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand, later in Delhi. When Ajai got a position in the Andaman Islands, I flew out there and spent a couple of weeks on these interesting islands.

As both of us had a great interest in Himalayan flora, we decided to make a guide book with photos, describing the most common and significant species – an enormous task, which occupied a large part of my time in the period 2007-2014. However, as the ability of mobile phones increased dramatically – and the usage of books consequently diminished – we realized that the project would fail. Not many people buy books nowadays. Instead I decided to describe the Himalayan plants, which I had managed to photograph, on this website (see Plants: Himalayan flora 1, 2, and 3).

Ajai retired in 2021, and the couple now lives in Goa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1999, we joined a group of Scandinavians on a 2-week-long hike in the Tien Shan Mountains, Kyrgyzstan, and in 2000 we went to Estonia together with Uffe Gjøl Sørensen (presented below), Mikkel Lausten, and Morten Christensen. Morten is (or was) co-owner of a dilapidated farm house near the village Rõude, situated north-east of Matsalu Nature Reserve.

For many years, Lene shared her life with Uffe until his untimely death in 2021. She had bought a summer house at Roskilde Fjord, northern Zealand, where she and Uffe spent the greater part of their spare time. They were both very interested in culture and history and undertook numerous journeys, inland and abroad, to investigate natural and cultural issues. I often visited them in the summer house, and in May 2017 we spent a week together on the island of Bornholm, in the Baltic Sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the trip was going to start at 4 A.M., I expected some, especially among the girls, to stay away, but everybody showed up! A couple of the girls were wearing shoes. Wagner, as we called him, just laughed and said that they would surely get their feet wet. Off we went on our long trip, and everybody endured. On this trip, Peter and I, and another of our class mates, Bent Bakkegaard (presented above), became interested in birds in earnest, and in the following years we often went birding together.

In 1972, Peter, his wife Jane, and I went to Madeira for a week. Later, we went our separate ways, and I haven’t seen him since the 1970s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have visited Peder and his wife Karin several times through the years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As mentioned above under Ib, I spent a month in Iceland with him and his family in the summer 1999, and during our stay we accompanied Sverrir several times on his ringing trips.