Accidental Bird Watching

Yesterday was international student orientation - an exhausting a fabulous time! But I don't feel like talking about it right now. Afterwards I went to a friend's house for pizza wine, chillaxing, and a movie. Except we watched The Constant Gardener which is anything but relaxing. Happily my friend lives just a fifteen-ish minute walk away, which will be a very quick bike.... once I get it together and buy my bike.

What I wanted to talk about though! I was fixing to go for a run today... when I finally got ready though I immediately ran by a brilliant little outdoor festival taking place half a block away. Soooo change of plans. It is part of this "Out Copenhagen" string of events where different neighborhoods have little gatherings.

There was a stage with a Raffi-esque band playing and a hundred kids essentially moshing in time to the kazoo. All around the square people had set up booths to make a flea market.... awesome! I got two lamps (Scandinavian winter darkness terrifies me), three cheap old post cards, and four cheap children's books in Danish for practice - including Alice in Wonderland! Buying things also afforded me the chance to practice simple Danish. YESSS.

Unfortunately I blanked and didn't take any pictures when it was in full swing, but here it is on the cleaning-up end of things..... you can see the stage in the background. 

Next I headed off to the big park that is just north of where I live... it includes three actually huge lakes. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical at first that it was going to be that big because the scale in Denmark usually ends up being quite small compared to the Pacific Northwest... but I wasn't disappointed! In fact I was in for a real treat.

I made my way to a little wooden shelter /  lookout tower on the bank of one of the lakes. Luckily I had brought my nice camera. There were two Danish guys with REALLY impressive looking cameras gazing out at the lake very seriously. Frankly I was a touch bemused. It is very nice! But not like.... 8 thousand dollar camera stake-out nice. It turns out that the Caspian Tern is in town for three each year - including now. And I happened to go to the best lookout spot in the city to see said tern. There were also some rare Osprey hanging about but I didn't quite catch the 411 on their comings and goings. One of the two men was pretty concentrated on his camera and couldn't really be bothered to chat with me. The other, however, asked all about my program and offered off random tidbits of camera advice and tips of photographing around Copenhagen. Yep, he's a professional photographer - he takes stock photos for a couple American companies and also photographs models. Like many Danes he was super curious as to why I care about Denmark. When I told him I just really like being here I looked at me incredulously and said, "Well. I guess it's nice for your country to be liked. But you know Denmark is very small, right?"

Birds! These ones aren't rare.... but I thought they were nice anyway.

The Caspian Tern!! Get excited. He just popped in from Sweden and is headed south again in about a week.

The lookout tower railing in the foreground...

Friendly Danish photographer in front.

Soon a pack of bird watchers showed up. I felt like a real ornithological outsider but they were so eager to be there that they wanted me to have a really good time.

Walking home from birding. The little tot on the back of the bike is about the most Danish image I can think of. Especially with her leggings, flats, swishy dress.

See the hidden message???

The sign says, "park your bikes here!"  I don't know if it's a government thing or a friendly home letting people use their fence.