Our great southern migration

  We stopped for caffeine and bathroom break in a small town as we were traveling north. The bathrooms were at the local park. The park had a small lake with an island. The spoonbills had taken over the island. It was the best bathroom break ever. These birds are hilarious. They use their feathers as a display/aggression/mating feature. The overall look is not terribly intimidating, IMHO However, it apparently works on other spoonbills! Just think these birds are so fun to watch! On the other end of the spectrum are spotted (and striated) pardalotes. I had one of Scott's pics of these little ones on my laptop for quite awhile. Such a unique little bird! This area has been fun to explore. We found a local winery to visit for Scott's birthday and came back with a half dozen bottles. This family winery has 3 different locations with different grape growing conditions so it was fun to taste some of the differences.  We also saw salination fields (pulling salt out of the water) as ...

  This guy was sitting across the river, waiting to be noticed. We were carefully watching the river for platypus (none seen) and then looked up to see him preening. Flame robin!  This small one is a scarlet honeyeater - they don't sit still very long and develop the red heads over time (like goldfinches turning more golden) Another small one with red parts - red-browed firetail finch. They are even smaller and are typically on the ground. One of the first small birds I chased down with the camera. This pic is one of Scott's.  Scott saw a firetail finch without a red brow as we were investigating a park in Victoria, Aus. However, I missed the shot and we didn't find it again. And this guy has a red butt - red-rumped parrot. We saw this particular parrot at Aunt Berenice's farm but found more on travels through Victoria We are currently in Goolwa, South Australia. To get to this state, we passed from New South Wales and through Victoria. We stopped at two cities along th...

  The hospitality of the SNU group was fabulous. They met us all at the airport and carried our luggage.They played Kpop songs in the van rides.  They fed us insanely good food. The gold on this sushi is for good luck: Everywhere we went, they had welcome signs We had two young DVM interpreters that shared their skills and information all day every day! They even had a strong connection with Minnesota dating back to the 1950s! (No, I wasn't at MN then, thanks kids; however, I did share PhD advisors with some of their faculty).  But above all, they kept us company and showed us Seoul. Because international flights leave in the evening (to keep customers quiet and asleep), we had most of the last day open. Instead of sending us on our way, they offered to show us the old town (our choice of what to see). As you wander through the spaces, there are diamonds on the ground to show where to stand to get the best shots.  We wandered into small shops and learned more history...

  The Korean Hanwoo cows look like beef versions of Jerseys and taste SO GOOD. We got to eat Hanwoo beef several times. The cows cannot be exported so you are not likely to get to eat it unless you come to Korea. You should.  As part of our visit, we got to see the SNU Agricultural space. This herd was in that region. The farm is up in the mountains so the cows get a great view. They do get to see snow, as well! We went to lunch at a restaurant that was the site of some of the famous Korean dramas. These are containers to make soy sauce: This is one of the owners making us bibimpap (a korean rice bowl), supersized: I loved the truck stops on the way there (drive was about 3.5 hours). Major retail center! The bathroom monitor was a work of technological art We spent most of the day at the farm campus and hit major rush hour on the way back. The other team went to other areas and got to experience this fantastic marvel of shoe protection: They also got back in time to get close ...

I promised more on Korea so we will mostly leave the birds behind for this post as I have lots of pictures to share. The picture above is the first official night of our visit. I went as part of the COE (Council on Education) site team visit as part of the accreditation of Seoul National University's College of Veterinary Medicine. Each college that is accredited by the AVMA and by the Dept of Education gets a similar review at least every 7 years. SNU is the only accredited college in Asia, not to mention in Korea. It is one of ten colleges in Korea and the accreditation status lets its students practice in the US/Canada after passing NAVLE and state boards vs taking other longer and more expensive paths to practice. It isn't used much in that regard but does give the college a special level of esteem.   Our team are the center group bookended by women. So two SNU folks on left side, then 7 of us, then three SNU folks on right. The SNU folks are the dean and associate deans. ...

       This blog is in honor/honour of the females that are brown or faded green while their mates are colorful/colourful! Many of these birds are not readily recognizable! I have now downloaded but not yet sorted my Korea pics so didn't want to wait on those. Hopefully this weekend! Note: these could be juvenile males; they look like the females. But we are going with these are females.  The image above is a golden whistler. It does whistle but isn't very golden. You can see the male on J is for jellyfish. This little lady (pretty sure she is a lady) is a female scarlet robin. Looks brown and orange to me! Her mate was on the  Gang's all here The female fairy wrens are great at incognito. They could be superb or variegated. In some instances, I swear they are red-browed fire tail finches. However, those juveniles are all brown and don't have red eye patches. The fairy wren boys come in various blue shades. See More fairy tails . The females are bolder...