Eat a dead horse

Why yes, says Sparta, I rather think I will!



Widescreen here.

Quote of the Week

An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured.
Konrad Adenauer

Pandas at the Nordic Ark

I got a request from a Youtube viewer about pictures of the red pandas at the Ark. I've posted some from previous years, but this year the animals are new. The Ark's previous panda, a female who had produced several cubs there, had gotten too old to breed last year when we were there, and they were getting ready to put her out to pasture, so to speak ... she was going to be sent to another European zoo, I don't remember which one, that doesn't participate in the breeding program so she could live out her last years in peace and quiet.

Earlier this year, in late spring/early summer, two new pandas arrived to begin their lives together at the Ark. They are still young, but hopefully they will get along well and will produce new cubs in their new home. Like the giant panda, the red panda is a difficult species to breed in captivity, and not all zoos manage it ... but the Ark have been successful 13 times in the past, so I for one have every confidence that they will manage it again with these two. The male came from somewhere in Finland, and the female came from Chester Zoo in the UK.

This is where my fellow Youtuber comes into the picture. She is apparently mad about red pandas and she lives close to Chester Zoo, so she visits there often and has seen the female panda - her name is Lily - many times. You can see some wonderful footage on her Youtube channel, here. She was interested in seeing pictures of Lily in her new home and wondered if I could help. Yees ... well, yes and no.

I do have some pictures of the panda enclosure from this year's visit, but not really any good ones. Last weekend was very hot in that part of Sweden - like 27 in the shade - so the pandas were, like most of the other animals, very lethargic and quiet. They kept to the shadowy treetops. I got some shots, but I think my correspondent will be disappointed, I'm sorry to say. I can't even tell which of them is Lily. She seems to have unusually pale facial markings, so if we had seen them up close we'd probably have been able to tell. But as it is, well ... You take a look.

Spot the panda ... :-)

Tanumine, Anne Ida, KAS: Do you have any better pictures? I know I probably had the best camera, but you spent a little more time at the panda enclosure than me, so ... maybe? I remember that someone showed me a couple of shots where at least one of the animals' faces was very clearly visible. Can you post those somewhere - whichever one of you has them :-) - so our panda fan can see? :-)

And seriously: Next time we will have to go sometime a little later in the year.

Nordens Ark, extended edition

Time for the annual road trip to the Nordic Ark. We are psyched!! All the more so since we're making it a weekend trip this time ... one day at the Ark, that'll be Sunday, but before then Havets hus in Lysekil, seal safari included. Yay. We'll be staying the night at the Ark's own hotel. It's a pretty good deal. More later, no doubt. :-)

I want one ... !!

Emys orbicularis, the European pond turtle. Cuteness!! I want one ... !



From this year's trip to the Nordic Ark, obviously. :-) Widescreen here.

Nordens Ark 2010

I'm finally getting around to uploading my videos from this year's visit to the Nordic Ark. It's only been three months, I think that's pretty good. ;-) This is the first one, it's basically everything that didn't fit in the other ten. :-D Various scenery and various animals. Check out the leopard ... I still haven't been able to figure out what s/he's chewing on. Any thoughts? I have pictures too ...


Widescreen here.

Quote of the Week

For what DNA literacy if we have extinguished the books?
Daniel H. Janzen

From today's road trip to the Nordic Ark. Baby Southern Pudu, cutest thing ever!! :-)

Animals at Nordens Ark 2009

Some of the animals we saw at the Nordic Ark this summer.

The last of the Southern pudús ... as I think I mentioned before (??) the Ark's female Pudu puda died this spring, and the calf from last year I guess had already been transferred to another zoo before that happened, so now the male is all alone in his enclosure. :-(

Aww, he's so adorable!! I remember that last year KAS said she wanted a pudú as a pet. I want one too ... !! :-D

Przewalski's horse, Equus caballus przewalski. See anything odd? :-)

Japanese cranes, Grus japonensis, wandering about ...

Along the side of their enclosure there was some info posted ... among other things this photo of how these birds look as hatchlings. Check out the grafitti on the picture; it's in Swedish and it says Adorable! and then there's a little heart. :-D

Wolves, Canis lupus, just after feeding time. Meat? Got meat?

Finnish forest reindeer, Rangifer tarandus fennicus. Impressive antlers on that buck there.

European wildcat, Felis silvestris silvestris. What a beautiful animal. C. and I were thrilled to see it as this was one of the species we didn't get to see last year.

Yup, got meat!! A young wolverine, Gulo gulo, who'd just 'caught' his dinner.

A Eurasian eagle owl, Bubo bubo. The biggest owl in Europe.

I love animals. :-)

Nordens Ark 2009

I'm not going to write 35 posts or whatever it was about my trip this year, but I've got to write some. :-) This first one will just show off the park a little bit ... some nature shots and what not ... and also a video that I made showing off the place. Not a lot of animals in that one, I've made others with the various animals. (Coming up, of course. :-) The park is just so beautiful in and of itself ... it's 20 years old now and it really shows, the woodlands are well established. It's also very well maintained, clean and neat and tidy. Just a gorgeous place all over. If you ever get the chance, please do visit. :-)

The Ark's hotel and restaurant, with the entrance in between the two buildings.

The entrance. 'Welcome to the Nordic Ark'! :-)

Animals born at the Ark in 2009.

The back of the building in the first shot. The entrance into the building is here. There are also picnic tables, and you can rent little carts to pull your gear or your kids around.

The road towards the 'Wild Park' and the entrance to the Land Farm.

Ducks enjoying the late summer sun.

Some ... nature ... along the side of the Southern Púdu enclosure.

Looking up into the trees. I really like taking shots like these, with the sun shining through the branches. :-)

Wilderness along the path from the panda enclosure.

Bright light, bright light ...

They have some vacant enclosures as well ... extra space just in case, I guess. :-)

The 'Wolf House' ... an outdoor and indoor picnic area with a small café which projects out into the wolves' enclosure. One of the best places to spot the wolf pack.

Wooded area between the wolves and the reindeer. :-)

Some of the old forest that's been left standing ... between the reindeer and the first of the big cats.

Next to the peregrine enclosure, I think.

Life finds a way ... :-)

They even have a rainbow ... ! ;-)

The aforementioned video.

Guess where I've been today!

Wheeee!! :-D

Yes, to that wonderful place Nordens Ark again. Does anyone remember that C. and KAS and trilltrall and I went there last summer? Today it was C. and Anne Ida and I who went. We saw so many amazing animals ... !! Like ...

... Siberian tiger Uri relaxing in the shade ...

... his future mate Sparta checking out some stupid twolegs whistling to get her attention ... no idea who those chicks were *cough* ...

... a wolf who'd just gotten a bite to eat ...

... two Emys orbicularis basking under their sun lamp ...

... more adorable salamanders ...

... a wolverine working for his dinner ...

... and ... can you spot what we saw here??

No prizes for guessing that in the reptile house, I did it again. Shame on me, etc. But they're just so cute ... !!!

Nordens Ark

This is just so that I'll get the park's actual name in a blogpost, so that if anyone googles the place, maybe there'll be a slim chance that they'll end up here. :-)

Nordens Ark er altså en dyrehage skråstrek villmarkspark i Bohuslän i Sverige, ca 2 mil fra Smögen. Det tar litt over 3 timer å kjøre dit fra Oslo. Les om parken her. Det er et helt fantastisk sted, et vakkert naturområde med nydelig beliggenhet, og samtidig en uvanlig vellykket dyrehage. Parken fokuserer delvis på utrydningstruede dyr, og delvis på dyr fra 'vår' del av verden, dvs dyr som hører til i temperert og subarktisk klima. De driver mye med oppdrett og avl på utrydningstruede dyr. Du kan se både pattedyr (f.eks. jerv, ulv, skogsrein, sibirsk tiger og snøleopard), fugler (f.eks. pilgrimsfalk, hubro, eremittibis, stork og hvitrygget hakkespett) og reptiler (f.eks. hoggorm, buorm, grønn frosk, europeisk damskilpadde og pilgiftfrosk). Alt dette mens du vandrer i et vakkert skogsområde. :-) Det finnes to kaféer og en gavebutikk inne på området, og dessuten et hotell hvis du bor for langt unna til å ta det som en dagstur. Hvis ungene blir lei av å se på dyr finnes det også en lekeplass. Alle fasiliteter!! På Landgården kan man dessuten klappe en del av dyrene (sauer, geiter, hester) og man kan også få seg en ridetur.

Kort sagt: det er umulig å ikke like dette stedet. :-) Reis til Nordens Ark idag!!! ;-)

Les alt jeg har skrevet om parken, med ørti bilder som illustrasjon, her.

The Nordic Ark, July 12th 2008. Part 35

By the time we'd seen about all there was to see at the farm (although I guess we could also have gone on a pony ride if we'd wanted ;-) it was about 5pm and we were all starting to get pretty tired. We were going to eat, but not in the restaurant slash cafe in the park ... we had food with us and were planning a picnic - as it turned out we could have eaten our food on the park grounds, there were tables to sit at and grassy areas we could have used, but since we didn't know that beforehand we'd left all the food in the car. Basically just as well since it would have been tiring carrying all that stuff around with us all day. We'd been figuring on finding a park or something somewhere anyway.

But first, of course, we had to make the unavoidable stop at the 'museum shop'. ;-) I bought some postcards, a tote bag aand ... a soft toy turtle. It has magnets in its feet, it's going to live on the side of my fridge. ;-)

Since none of us knew the area, we had to drive around for a bit before we managed to find a good spot for our picnic. We ended up in the town park in Munkedal. A tiny little place with a gorgeous park. We were sooo ready for some food ... !! :-) We had so much stuff with us (and we stopped at a grocery store on the way to get even more) so it really was a pretty serious meal. :-)

Left-right: C., me, KAS:

Left-right: trilltrall, C., me:

Back on the road again we started to really feel how tired we were. We were pretty much falling asleep for a while there ... although not C., of course, she's a responsible driver. :-) But the rest of us got really quiet for a while. To the point where I felt both guilty and a little nervous since no doubt C. was as tired as the rest of us, and we were all nodding off instead of helping her stay awake and alert. But she stayed focused though. :-) And pretty soon she found a great way to wake us all up ...

No trip to Sweden is complete without going shopping for more food than you really need!! KAS was sensible and only bought various baked goods that are more expensive and often not even available back home (she has gluten intolerance). C. was actually there to buy Coke for her boyfriend (he'd asked her to) but since she was there she could pick up a few other things too ... and then we wandered into the candy section, fools that we were. I bought a huge box of cinnamon and some strawberry and raspberry juice. And licorice string. :-) Well, since we were there ...

Left-right: me, C.:

After these important errands had been taken care of we headed back towards Oslo. The trip took a little over three hours each way. After the shopping expedition we all managed to stay more or less awake. I had of course brought a selection of music to keep us entertained on the way (ABBA, Bonnie Tyler, Pet Shop Boys, Leonard Cohen ... and some more stuff that I think I'm forgetting. :-)

We all got home safely after this pretty busy day. A good time was had by all!! :-D It was a fantastic experience and I can't recommend this wonderful place strongly enough. The Ark, that is. I'm definitely going back there. YOU should go there too!! :-)

Finally, in closing this near-endless series of blog posts, I want to extend a big thank you to KAS, trilltrall and C. for going with me and making the day so much fun, and especially a HUGE thank you to C. for driving us there & back again. And so comfortably, too. ;-) It was very much appreciated. :-)

And a little bitty thank you to me for planning the trip and making it happen. :-)

(Photo credit: KAS)

The Nordic Ark, July 12th 2008. Part 34b

The first post about the farm got to be soo long that I decided to write a second one about the various animals that we saw there.

There were a couple of exhibitions ... one about sheep and other farm animals, and one about honeybees/beekeeping. I didn't read all the info posted in that one but in what I did read I can't remember there being anything about how our species may be extinct in 30 years because the bees are disappearing. (I'm not joking. I'll be getting back to this in a later post.) I guess that's too 'negative' for a place like that, it would get people 'down' or whatever. There's humans for you, if we don't like it, we pretend it isn't happening right up until it kills us. We suck.

But here are some much better species!! Look at the ducklings, the adorable ducklings ... !! Aww!

There were lots of them, and a number of different adult geese, so which babies belonged to which mother was anyone's guess. Soo many different colors and color combinations. And all of them soo cute ... !! :-)

The sun is good. The sun is our friend. The sun ...

Hey, whatcha doin'??

These black hens were of some particular breed that almost went extinct in the last century, but was saved at the last minute. Pretty hens.

Sheep ... :-)

There is this really cool gadget in one of the ... barns ... where you can weigh yourself and see your weight in animals. Unfortunately we didn't take a picture of that, I don't know what we were thinking. C. and I together weigh a reindeer. trilltrall weighs a wolf and two rabbits. :-D

These geese must have thought we were stalking them. But they just walked ahead of us where we were going anyway. They planned their cruel revenge by biting my toes (I was walking first in the group and I was the only one of the four of us who was wearing sandals - bad combination). But I managed to escape. ;-)

(Photo credit: 1-6, 8: KAS; 7, 9: C.)