And the winner is......

.....nobody!

Thanks to everyone who voted in the first Birding Copenhagen blog poll... Short-eared Owl and White-tailed Eagle seemed to be the favourites but I can exclusively reveal that none of the options was right - my next species was actually, unexpectedly, a CRESTED LARK which decided to take up residence in Copenhagen town centre for 3 days. Crested Lark is a rare bird in Denmark - there is one breeding site in north-west Jutland but on Sjaelland (the island on which Copenhagen is located) they are less than annual.

Despite visiting the favoured wintering site of Short-eared Owl no fewer than five times, I have yet to see one... (even though up to three are regularly reported from there!). I have also just missed out on White-tailed Eagle (the all too familiar "you should have been here 10 minutes ago..." story). So you were close...

Danish Cartoons - freedom of speech or freedom to insult?

The last two weeks have seen an unwelcome return of the controversy surrounding the publication in the Danish media of cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed. This story began in 2005 when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons, including one of the prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb as a turban. Danish Muslim organizations, who objected to the depictions, responded by holding public protests attempting to raise awareness of Jyllands-Posten's publication. The controversy deepened when further examples of the cartoons were reprinted in newspapers in more than fifty other countries. This led to protests across the Muslim world, some of which escalated into violence with police firing on the crowds (resulting in more than 100 deaths), including setting fire to the Danish Embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, and desecrating the Danish, Norwegian and German flags in Gaza City. While a number of Muslim leaders called for protesters to remain peaceful, other Muslim leaders across the globe, including Mahmoud al-Zahar of Hamas, issued death threats. Many Islamic organisations and nations implemented boycotts of Danish products in protest.

The Danish press defended the cartoons as an expression of freedom of speech, stating that many other religions had been depicted in a critical or humourous way and that this was part of a free society.

The controversy gradually died down but then, a couple of weeks ago on 12 February 2008, Danish police arrested three men (two Tunisians and a Danish national originally from Morocco) in connection with an alleged plot to kill the cartoonist responsible for the "bomb in the turban" cartoon, Kurt Westergaard. This prompted a very strong reaction among the Danish media and the following day nearly all of the main Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoon as a show of support for Westergaard, citing freedom of speech.

Now, to me, freedom of speech comes with some responsibility. Clearly the original publication of the cartoons was an innocent representation of free speech that sat comfortably alongside cartoonists satirical depiction of many other religions, individuals and organisations and there was no way they could have predicted the backlash that would follow. The fact that a few individuals chose to break the law and plot to kill the cartoonist represents a criminal offence and, rightly, these individuals were detained and deported. But is the right response to a tiny minority to republish the cartoons, knowing they are insulting to a wide section of the Muslim community, in the name of free speech? To me this is a blatant and intentional insult and is an abuse of the principle of free speech. Free speech should not be used as an excuse to go round deliberately insulting people just because you can... it is rude and wrong. I wouldn't dream of insulting my work colleagues, just because I can.. I might make fun of them, knowing that a joke would be taken in the right spirit, but if I KNEW they would take the joke as an insult, then it would be rude and wrong of me to make that joke.

The republication of the cartoons, to me, is a deliberate attempt by the Danish media to insult Muslims and is not a proportionate or fair response to the fact that three individuals were plotting to kill the cartoonist.

The Danes are struggling with immigration and the integration of Muslims into their communities. With the attitude of their media I think they have a lot to learn about respect and tolerance before they can hope to move towards a truly multicultural society.

Brazil

Photos:

i) Pantanal gang:
Back row (left to right): Governor of Mato Grosso's personal assistant, Ian Johnson (former Vice President of the World Bank), me, Michael Kauch (German MP), Jose (Senator Serys Slhessarenko's office), Anders Wijkman (Swedish MEP) and Malcolm Bruce (UK MP).
Front row (left to right): Ethna Johnson (Ian Johnson's wife), Maria (interpreter), Caroline (Governor's office) and Grazia Francescati (Italian MP).
ii) A Capybara (the world's largest rodent)
iii) A Caracara (a bird of prey)
iv) A macaque


A work commitment meant I spent ten days in Brazil in mid-February, arranging the policy content of a climate change forum for legislators from the G8 countries and the major emerging economies of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. It was a very successful event, if exhausting, with President Lula, the Japanese Prime Minister and over 80 legislators in attendance. We managed to secure consensus statements on biofuels, forestry and made a lot of progress on developing a post-2012 framework for climate change. Afterwards, courtesy of the Governor of Mato Grosso, Blairo Maggi, we spent two days in the Pantanal, a huge wetland area (about the size of France) in the west of Brazil. The sheer scale of Brazil is staggering. We met with the Governor in the city of Ciuaba after he had travelled 2,000km to meet us, from his home in the same state! After that meeting, where he assured us that his USD150m fortune from soya was not impacting on the rainforest or other highly biodiverse land (ehum), he invited us to visit the Pantanal as his personal guests. After travelling 3 and a half hours along what can best be described as a dirt track, we arrived at the Sesc Pantanal Lodge set in the stunning Pantanal wetlands. The period Dec-Jun is the wet season so the water level was very high. Most of the forested area was flooded and we had to get around by boat. Having arrived at around 8pm we were given 20 minutes to change before heading out on a night safari. This involved taking a boat on the river with a huge spotlight, hoping to see some of the local wildlife. Literally ten metres from the pier we spotted a Caiman, a sort of mini crocodile, the first of several we were to see that night.. Later on we saw bats the size of hawks, some nocturnal birds that resembled giant nightjars, several brightly coloured frogs, an anhinga (a sort of large cormorant) and a few Capybaras (the world's largest rodent). The following day was spent walking some of the trails where we saw monkeys, lots of birds (most of which I had no idea from which family they were, let alone species!), lots of stunning butterflies and more Capybaras. An amazing place and a real dream come true to visit. The pre-trip talk of huge mosquitos carrying malaria, denge and yellow fever, cockroaches the size of rats and leeches that lie in ambush as you walk past was soon forgotten when the locals told us there was no malaria in the area, no yellow fever and no cases of denge fever for years. Phew... Apparently if we had visited the area 200 miles to the north, all three are present.

All in all an amazing trip and I will definitely be back..

Chitty runner

I made a flying visit back to Norfolk at the weekend following a couple of days working in London. The weather was Spring-like with a warm sun, clear blue sky and a light westerly breeze. With a packed lunch and a flask of coffee I took off for the day, exploring my favourite haunt of Winterton north dunes, hoping to pick up a scarce bird or two. Seawatching was slow going, with a few Red-throated Divers, a small flock of Common Scoter, a single Gannet and the odd Brent Goose or Sanderling, so I pottered off down the Holmes Road to look for the elusive Treecreepers (the only semi-reliable site in Winterton). No sign, but I did manage Bullfinch and a Coal Tit (both not easy in Winterton). A bit further north I stumbled across 3 Cranes loafing in a field and, after a scan of the area north of the concrete blocks, I picked up a Peregrine sitting on a clump of grass in the middle of a marshy field. It wasn't long before it was terrorising the local pigeons and I twice watched it make (unsuccessful) attempts to catch lunch before settling back to the same clump of grass. It was only my fourth Peregrine in Winterton (and the third in the last two years), so a delight to watch. During the afternoon I went back to the beach to try to photograph the Sanderling that was running up and down. A local name for Sanderling is Chitty Runner and, apparently, local people from Winterton are known as Chitty Runners, too.. so it is an appropriate bird to find there.. It wasn't particularly obliging (they are buggers for keeping still) but I did manage the photo above. The foray to the beach also resulted in my most gruesome find of the weekend - a wooden box on the tideline that clearly used to hold the ashes of a poor lady called Helen, cremated at Mortlake Crematorium in June 2007. Nice..

As dusk approached I was hoping for an owl or two and that is exactly what I saw - two Barn Owls hunting over the dunes. Sadly no Short-eared Owl (a long shot) but a sub-adult male Hen Harrier was a bonus before the light finally disappeared on what was a thoroughly enjoyable day.

69 species over the two days puts me in the lead in the Winterton Bird Spotting Collective's annual year-listing competition. See www.birdwatch.plus.com But I am sure the lead will be short-lived - last year's winner saw a whopping 173 species!

Dipper

Sunday 27th January started out mild, wet and windy but gradually brightened up into a glorious winter's day with clear skies and a gentle cold northerly breeze. I had planned to go to Dyrhavn to look for woodpeckers and try my luck along the stream at the northern end for the Black-bellied Dippers that have been reported recently. Given the poor weather in the morning I struggled to see much at all. Two drumming Great-spotted Woodpeckers, a few Nuthatches and a Mistle Thrush (not very common here at all in winter) were the highlights of the morning. But the afternoon picked up when I immediately saw one of the Dippers as soon as I reached the stream. For about 15 minutes it fed in the slow moving water, consistently finding light-coloured grubs that seemed to be hiding in leaves at the bottom of the water. Several times,after a short dive, it came to the surface with a rotting leaf which it shook violently to reveal a small grub. It was eventually spooked by a dog which ran to the edge of the stream and flew upstream calling. The Dipper sub-species in Scandinavia is the "Black-bellied" variety, occasionally seen in the east of England, particularly in hard winters. In Denmark, given the lack of uplands and fast-moving streams (the Dipper's favoured breeding habitat), it is almost exclusively a winter visitor, presumably from Norway or Sweden. The UK's version of the Dipper is more reddish-brown below rather than dark brown.

After the Dipper zoomed upstream I wandered to the coast at Charlottenlund to look for gulls. Only a few Black-headed, Common and Herring Gulls loafed on the water but a few hundred yards south a Common Seal was hauled out on a wooden jetty at the local sailing club. It caused quite a lot of interest among the locals and posed very accommodatingly for photographs. Common Seal is, as its name suggests, the most common seal in these parts and it is not unusual for them to be found in small harbours, particularly in winter.

Winter fayre

Photos: Waxwings (first two) and Smew in flight

Although we are in the middle of winter, it really doesn't feel like it. With temperatures consistently a good 5 to 6 degs C above the seasonal average, it feels almost Spring-like at the moment. And certainly not the sort of temperature or weather that I was expecting during my first Scandinavian winter. It means that there are few scarce winter visitors here that you would expect in a hard winter (eg Nutcrackers, Hawk Owls, Pygmy Owls, Tengmalm's Owls etc) but there is still plenty to keep me interested. Yesterday I cycled around the west coast of Amager to view the freshwater reedy pools on the Vestamager Reserve and also the strait of sea between the islands of Amager and Sjaelland. Tufted Duck were in huge numbers - I lost count at about 1,500 on the main lake - with a good number of Scaup in amongst them. On the sea were a few Great Crested Grebes, a few Wigeon, Goosander, Red-breasted Merganser, Cormorants and 50+ Smew. It is great to see so many of these gorgeous black and white ducks together in one place. I can remember getting excited at seeing my first Smew on Martham Broad in Norfolk many years ago and they continue to be a scarce winter visitor to the UK.

A bit further around the track at Kongelunden, on the south coast of Amager, I stumbled across a mixed finch flock, including good numbers of Chaffinch, Brambling, Greenfinch, Goldfinch and a single Hawfinch. Then, as I was watching the finches, a flock of 20+ Waxwings alighted in the berry bushes nearby and I was able to take a few photos in the lovely low sun. There are very good numbers around at the moment and I seem to see at least 100+ on each outing.

Arctic visitor

I couldn't resist travelling to see the first-winter ROSS'S GULL that was found just before Christmas in Esbjerg Harbour, western Jylland. Ross's Gull is a very rare visitor from the Arctic sea ice with only 9 previous records in Denmark (there are around 90+ records in the UK where it is almost annual, although very difficult to connect with on the mainland). With a fair weather forecast I caught the train from Copenhagen at 0630 to ensure I was there just after first light and the bird did not disappoint. No doubt lured by my lunch of rye bread and cheese, this bird was unbelievably tame and in the company of a maximum of 10 birders at any one time (how refreshing). It favoured a small fresh water puddle on one of the quays and, apart from the odd show-flight around the harbour, spent the best part of 4 hours in this small area, often walking to within a few feet of enchanted birders and photographers. Several times it called a sort of tern-like "eek". It is a small gull (about Little Gull size) but with longer wings, an elongated tail and a clear white trailing edge to the wing (lacking the dark secondary bar of first winter Little Gulls). It really is the holy grail of gulls for most European birders. Number 181.

One hundred and eiiiiggghty!

We welcomed in the New Year in Copenhagen with friends from London (Richard, Elise and Alice). We consumed more flaeskestegt, champagne and partook in some party games before heading off to Kongens Nytorv a few minutes before midnight. Health and safety doesn't seem to be an issue here in Denmark as hundreds of people took their own fireworks and set them off from empty beer or champagne bottles.. The highlight was a group of young people in a car driving around the main square while launching rockets from their sunroof! Unbelievable. One of our Danish friends told us that she never goes out on New Year's Eve without goggles! We thought she was just weird but after experiencing it for ourselves, I can see why!

To wipe away the cobwebs on 2 Jan I caught the train up to Nivå (about 25 minutes north of Copenhagen) to see the Black-throated Thrush that has been present for the last few days. Incredibly there was one in exactly the same spot last winter, prompting speculation that it is the same bird returning for its second winter in Daneland. It showed pretty well, despite the poor light, and takes me up to 180 species for Denmark..