About

   
OWNER
Jesper Bay Jacobsen
Jesper Bay Jacobsen - Copenhagen, Denmark.
CONTACT jbj@jesperbayjacobsen.com
+45 5216 9326

THE WEBSITE Birds, Butterflies and Dragonflies. Mostly. And personal reflections about life. My nature interests can be summed up to field identification, species lists, taxonomy, photography and traveling. The birds are still mostly focused on Mexico, but since I'm not there anymore, the Danish birds are becoming more in focus each day. As are the butterflies and dragonflies which I've just started to dig into after I came back to Denmark.

Being very enthusiastic about the Butts and Drags I'm intending to build a resource for others to benefit from, something like a personalized online guide, hopefully adding information that is not normally to be found in the standard field guides. Of course it's a long term project, which will grow progressively as I gain more experience and knowledge. Here Oct 2022, I'm on my second year only, why there's way to go still.

HOW IT STARTED I'm born in 1966 but didn't start birdwatching until 1987 which is late compared to most of the brighter stars on the avian firmament. And it was a very hesitant start.

Being negative and skeptic about many things in those years my first encounter with the birding world was no exception.
My family shared a summer residence in Sweden with 4 other families; my father's colleague being one of them. And he was a birdwatcher. And when we went shopping we would drive through the landscape, and he would start like this: ”Look, that's a Buzzard sitting on that post”. And later: “That was a Red Kite flying behind the trees, and those are Ravens...” For a long time I just ignored it as useless boring information, and we would drive on with no further comments on my part.

But during the years he would continue, and I came to a point when it irritated me that he made his statements with such confidence and enthusiasm. “Don't fool me you old hippie!” And I started questioning him with a very skeptical expression on my face, trying to show as much mistrust as possible! As if anybody would be able to identify a bird sitting 100 meters away while driving at 80 km/h. HA!

Of course my bad intentions of exposing him as a fraudulent bragger didn't bare fruit. He started explaining the details and differences, and crosschecking with his bird guides I understood that what he said was true.

Denied a successful result to my bad-mannered attack, I had to accept that there was a world of challenging feathers out there that I did not master nor knew of. And even more irritating: It fascinated me!

From there on it started little by little, and with a few breaks in the earlier years my birding interest has just kept growing.
During these years I have been birding most countries in Europe as well as Israel, Turkey, Tunisia, China, India, Gambia, USA, Canada and Mexico.

In 1988 I visited Mexico the first time.
I'm still not completely sure why I felt attracted to this strange country so far away. One reason, though, why I made my decision was that my high school friends who also decided to travel far in those years all headed in the other direction out of Denmark, toward the Far East. The classical naive hippie illusion as I saw it. I needed to manifest my disapproval, so I turned the map upside down, and it pointed toward Mexico.

The Mexican landscapes though, have always been a great attraction to me, I see that today, and in those years the Pre-Hispanic cultures probably as well, since I visited all the important ruin sites during that trip.

Being a very newborn birder I still didn't understand the concept that well and the talking about species list and lifers didn't affect me at all. So when it was time to pack my bag I did it with the intention to travel light, so I felt I had to choose between binoculars or my camera to minimize the weight. And since photography was still more interesting to me than watching birds I opted for the camera.

A disaster from a birding point of view it turned out, since I, after going back to Denmark, didn't have a clue about any birds I had seen during the 3 months I traveled through the region other than from two photos I took. A California Gull in LA, and an Ocellated Turkey in Tikal in Guatemala. Tragic! Not a single feather from Mexico, and as my birding interest grew stronger over the years, the frustration did too. So close to so many attractive species, and nothing. I had to go back!

With patience we all shall die, and finally 18 years later in 2006 the world re-arranged itself allowing me to once again set foot on this faraway land that during all these years had been slumbering in my heart as a forgotten attraction.
So on the 6th of January I could make my first Mexican records: It was in Aguascalientes on a freezing cold morning, and I was thrilled to see Inca and White-winged Doves together with Clay-colored Sparrows and, as it has turned out later, a rare Green-tailed Towhee and scarce White-crowned Sparrows. I loved it, and have done so ever since.

HOW TO To my only reader: Leap faithfully into the new reality, my dear Bøggild! Learn to embrace the digital era. Don't be afraid to click and try. Have trust that some kind of considerate logic gave birth to the work you see before you. You are smart enough to do that.

To anyone else who unwillingly happens to land on my pages:
This work started out many years ago with the intention to provide good information about the subjects of my interest. The birds mainly. And a few words about the curiosities of life in general. And from that perspective user-friendliness was a natural angle to have in mind. The site should be simple and easy to use. But later life started to bumble - up and down - and my focus slipped and my frustrations grew bigger. And in that I had not much energy to spare to consider my potential readers needs. So I just added in new functionality as it suited me, and with time the site has grown to be more of a personal work space from where I can easily reach my material, when the need occurs.

Therefore, as Bøggild, you might find it confusing at times, when trying to find specific information about the birds. Or the dragonflies for that matter. So let me give a quick explanation here:

There are of course the various blogs on my site, and these I hope are self-explanatory if you happen to find them. The other two large areas I cover are photos/media and observations. Historically these two parts were created as two separate systems, and I have kept them like this out of convenience (it takes a larger remake to integrate them, but more so, I haven't decided if I should merge them or not). So the resulting fact is, that you can't expect to find information about photos by trying to find the related observation and viceversa.

The observations entry will give you access to all my records of natural things. And, yes, some of the records will include links to photos of that record if I have any (and have created the link, which is not always the case). This part I mainly added to the public area out of convenience for myself, when needing to find information while in the field or elsewhere. However, since I don't use any of the public record databases (dofbasen, observado, ebird), any longer on a regular basis, you might find observations of interest that have not been made public elsewhere.

Therefore, since the photo part is most likely the main reason to land on this site you should focus on that by clicking your way to Butterflies, Birds or Dragonflies - which are all emphasized and easy to reach from their own links in the menu. All other natural things can be found under Flora and Fauna (media) also in the menu.

Navigating through the material I've decided that each layer of information opens in a new Tab window. This means that you start out with a general list (for example a species list), then a new Tab opens and you get to see all the information (photos) of that species, and then if you need to see all the details of the specific photo record, you have to click on the thumbnail to have that information revealed which will happen in a new Tab.

To you it might seem as an enormously cumbersome way to maneuver through the site, but this is perfect for me and the way I work with my data. I hate endless link-chains where you have to back-click your way to your starting-point. And this way of doing it works fine on both mobile and desktop devices.

Returning to the Observations part, you might find the search menu in there too complex to understand intuitively. I'm going to add more instructions to the page on how to use it, at least for you to make a simple search. But basically it gives you a rather refined way of searching information. However, a few inconveniences are obvious: Since I only added category recently, it can feel clumsy that even if you have decided to search for a specific species only, then you still have to select the corresponding category. Therefore it has been marked with a red asterisk. This might be changed in the future. Another general aspect of searching is that you have to enter the text that you will be searching for yourself. Species names should be English (ebird American for birds or XXX for the rest) or the equivalent four-letter species code, eg. Mallard with code MALL, White-crowned Sparrow with code WCSP, etc. This is of course not at all easy to get right without practice, but as long as I have no perception that there is a true need out there for being able to access my observations on a regular basis, I'm not going to change this. A way to find out how to spell a species name or see its four-letter code is to access the Species link in the menu. Here you can enter the search string in various languages and find your match. Four-letted codes are search facilities and not unique identifiers,why several species can have the same code.

COOKIES AND JAVASCRIPT Cookies and javascript must be allowed for the page to work. Only using cookies for website functionality.

The website is only optimized for desktop and laptop.

LANGUAGES Danish because I'm Danish, English because it is unavoidable and Spanish because Mexico used to be my new home. But the site is no longer maintained in all three languages, only English, except for the species names. However, Danish and Spanish might still appear as my mood and inspiration dictate it.

PHOTOS All photos are taken by me, unless mentioned otherwise in the comment field of the picture.The few pictures dated before October 2007, have been taken with a Nikon Coolpix 4500 and as handheld 'digiscoping', if speaking of bird pictures.Photos dated between October 2007 and March 2015 have all been taken using a Canon 40D + 400mm f/5.6 or 17-40 4.0 L.

Have bought Canon 7D Mark II in March 2015, and all pictures from that day will be taken with this camera.

While doing a short trip to Belize at the beginning of December 2018, my 400mm lens simply fell apart while watching a beautiful double rainbow glowing over Bird's Eye View Lodge in Crooked Tree. I might try to have it repaired one day, since it has been a perfect companion for a mobile birder taking photos, but after having regretted the incident for a short while, I decided to see it as positive signal to finally get a newer lens. And often doing handheld and monopod shooting I have long wanted to have a lens with stabilization, why I January 7th 2019 bought the 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM. Realizing that I'm a birder with a camera and not a photographer shooting birds, I expect this lens to support my continued need for flexibility and mobility.

Photos for localities and close-up photos of exuvias and other small stuff are all taken with a poor smartphone camera, why the quality often isn't ideal, but until I get a better camera for this, I hope you can still get the impression of the place and the details I'm trying to present.

BUY PHOTOS If you have found a photo that you want to use, contact me by email, and we will work out a price and conditions.
TAXONOMY BIRDS:
The taxonomy of birds and their English names follow the ebird/Clements taxonomy in latest edition (ebird/Clements (2024)).

The Danish names follow the list produced by Navnegruppen under The Danish Ornithological Society. This list though, follows Sibley & Monroe, and therefore if mismatches occur, I will have to name the species from another source and will put a note on this with the species name.

The Mexican bird names follow ebird.org (because these seem to be adopted directly from the major Mexican resources). Spanish names for bird species not relevant to Mexico, will be found in ebird, or if also failing here, using Wikipedia.

BUTTERFLIES:
English butterfly names for Mexican species follow "A Swift guide to Butterflies of Mexico and Central America" by J. Glassberg (2017 second edition).

European butterfly names follow: "Collins Butterfly Guide" by Tom Tolman & Richard Lewington (2009).

English dragonfly names follow: "Europe's dragonflies" by Dave Smallshire and Andy Swash (2020).

Danish butterfly and dragonfly names follow: naturbasen.dk.

Spanish names to any Mexican species other than birds follow naturalista.mx. Other Spanish names will be found using wikipedia.org or Spanish online resources like Associación ZERYNTHIA or Nombres vernáculos...

DRAGONFLIES:
Overall the taxonomy is based on the world list presented by ODONATA CENTRAL, a citizen science project with a N American focus. The list is based on the work lead by Puget Sound Museum of Natural History under the University of Puget Sound.

Confusingly, however, it appears that the order at family level is not synchronized between the two, and I will have to dig deeper into the lists to see if there are more discrepancies also at species level for example.

Names on this website follow the relevant resources listed under Literature and Resources.

I intent to let common English names follow a principle of 'home precedence', meaning that species that are widely distributed, like Lestes dryas which is present in both the old and new world, will be given the main name that is commonly used closer to where I live (Denmark). Alternative names will be listed as synonyms under the species accounts. I know it will result in a 'zigzag'-naming style, some aeshna species for example being called darners and others hawkers. If it looks to ugly and is too confusing, I'll change the names back to be consistent worldwide, but right now I think it could be of benefit, adding this extra information into the name directly. An American seeing a hawker name of a home familiar species, aeshna juncea, will know right away, that the species is also present in Europe. To me, still being an upstarter this is good information!

LITERATURE AND RESOURCES
Resources used for information about butterflies and dragonflies on this website.
BUTTERFLIES:
Nordens Fjärilar (2019)
Bo Söderström
Collins Butterfly Guide (2009)
Tom Tolman and Richard Lewington
Danmarks Sommerfugle (2009)
Morten Top-Jensen & Michael Fibiger
Butterflies of Mexico and Central America edi.2 (2018)
Jeffrey Glassberg
DRAGONFLIES:
De danske guldsmede (1998)
Ole Fogh Nielsen
Nordens Trollsländor (2019 and 2023)
Magnus Billqvist
Field Guide to the Dragonflies of Britain and Europe, 2. edition (2020)
Dijkstra, Schröter and Lewington
Europe's Dragonflies (2020)
Dave Smallshire and Andy Swash
Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West (2009)
Dennis Paulson
Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East (2011)
Dennis Paulson
Dragonflies and Damselflies - A natural history (2019)
Dennis Paulson
Dragonflies and Damselflies - Model Organisms for Ecological and Evolutionary Research, 2. edition (2023)
edited by Córdoba-Aguilar, Beatty and Bried
Die Libellen Europas (2019, 2014)
Hansruedi Wildermuth, Andreas Martens
THE BIRDING PROGRAM The Birding Program is my own software where I keep my bird records. It used to be my dream to make a commercial version, but as the world grew accustomed to free online services, that perspective soon faded away. But I keep developing it, and also use it to create my reports and checklists. If you for some reason are still looking for the right software solution to serve your needs, you are welcome to have a test account opened to see if it would be useful to you.

WISH LIST
The title list is sorted, beginning with the most wanted at the top. This is indicated by the red priority number in front of the title. Entries with the same priority number are wanted equally, and are sorted alphabetically.

Using bookshops outside of EU implies extra import fees. EU bookshops to use:
www.naturbutiken.se
www.naturbutikken.dk
1 - Dragonflies and Damselflies of the World - A Guide to Their Diversity 
Dijkstra
ISBN: 9780691255033
1 - Dragonflies of North America 
Ed Lam
ISBN: 9780691232874
1 - Hoverflies of Britain and Ireland (Third edition) 
Stuart Ball and Roger Morris
ISBN: 9780691246789
1 - Hoverflies of Britain and North-West Europe A Photographic Guide 
Sander Bot and Frank Van de Meutter
ISBN: 9781399402453
2 - A Guide to the Dragonflies & Damselflies of South Africa 
Warwick Tarboton and Michèle Tarboton
ISBN: 9781775847007
2 - Conservation of Dragonflies - Sentinels for Freshwater Conservation 
Michael Samways
ISBN: 9781789248371
2 - Dragonflies and Damselflies of Costa Rica 
Dennis R Paulson and William A Haber
ISBN: 9781501713163
2 - Dragonfly Behavior 
Georg Rüppell and Dagmar Hilfert-Rüppell
ISBN13: 9783662702338
2 - The Complete Field Guide to Dragonflies of Australia, Second edition 
Günther Theischinger, John Hawking, Albert Orr
ISBN: 9781486313747
2 - The Dragonflies and Damselflies of Eastern Africa 
Klaas-Douwe B Dijkstra and Viola Clausnitzer
ISBN: 9789491615061
5 - Noctuidae Europaeae 
Morten Top, Dieter Fritsch, and Vladimir Kononenko Buy!
ISBN-13: 978-87-973804-0-6
50 - A Field Guide to the Birds of Brazil 
Ber van Perlo
ISBN-13: 9780195301540
50 - A Birdwatchers' Guide to Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and the Caymans 
Guy Kirwan, Arturo Kirkconnell and Mike Flieg
ISBN-13: 9781871104127
50 - A Guide to the Birds of Fiji and Western Polynesia 
Dick Watling
ISBN: 9829030040
50 - A Guide to the Birds of Nicaragua / Nicaragua - Una Guía de Aves 
Juan Martínez-Sánchez
ISBN-13: 9783866171183
50 - A Message from Martha 
Mark Avery
ISBN-13: 9781472906274
50 - African Raptors 
William S Clark
ISBN-13: 9780713665383
50 - Ageing & Sexing of Migratory East Asian Passerines 
Gabriel Norevik(Author), Magnus Hellström(Author), Dongping Liu(Author), Bo Petersson(Author)
ISBN: 9789198516579
50 - Antpittas and Gnateaters 
Harold Greeney
ISBN-13: 9781472919649
50 - Bats of Colima, Mexico 
Cornelio Sánchez-Hernández, María De Lourdes Romero-Almaraz, Gary D Schnell, Michael L Kennedy, Troy L Best, Robert D Owen, Sara B González-Pérez
ISBN: 9780806152165
50 - Birding Northeast Ecuador 
Steven L Herrmann
ISBN-13: 9781539089261
50 - Birds of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao: A Site and Field Guide 
Jeffrey V Wells & Allison Childs Wells
ISBN-13: 9781501701078
50 - Birds of Bhutan 
Carol Inskipp, Tim Inskipp and Richard Grimmett
ISBN: 071366990X
50 - Birds of Borneo 
Susan Myers
ISBN-13: 9781472924445
50 - Birds of Central Asia 
Raffael Ayé
ISBN-13: 9780713670387
50 - Birds of Costa Rica 
Richard Garrigues
ISBN-13: 9781472916532
50 - Birds of Cuba 
Orlando H Garrido
ISBN: 0713657847
50 - Birds of Eastern Polynesia: A Biogeographic Atlas 
Jean-Claude Thibault(Author), Alice Cibois(Author)
ISBN-13: 9788416728053
50 - Birds of Japan 
Mark Brazil
ISBN-13: 9781472913869
50 - Birds of Nepal 
Richard Grimmett
ISBN-13: 9781472905710
50 - Birds of Oman 
Jens Eriksen(Author), Richard Porter(Author)
ISBN-13: 9781472937537
50 - Birds of South America: Non-Passerines, Rheas to Woodpeckers 
Francisco Erize
ISBN: 0691126887
50 - Birds of the West Indies 
Herbert Raffaele, James Wiley, Orlando Garrido, Allan Keith and Janis Raffaele
ISBN: 0713654198
50 - Birds of Trinidad and Tobago 
Martyn Kenefick, Robin Restall and Floyd Hayes
ISBN-13: 9781408152096
50 - Birds of Venezuela 
David Ascanio (Author), Gustavo Rodriguez (Author), Robin Restall (Author)
ISBN-13: 9781408105351
50 - Birds of Vietnam 
Richard C Craik and Lê Quý Minh
ISBN: 9788416728138 (hardback version)
50 - Birdwatching in Colombia 
Jürgen Beckers
ISBN-13: 9789090277851
50 - Bovids of the World Antelopes, Gazelles, Cattle, Goats, Sheep, and Relatives 
José R Castelló
ISBN: 9780691167176
50 - Challenge Series: Autumn, Birding Frontiers Challenge Series Volume: 1 
Martin Garner
ISBN-13: 9780992975708
50 - Collins Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia 
Norman Arlott
ISBN-13: 9780007429547
50 - Cuckoos of the World 
Johannes Erritzøe
ISBN-13: 9780713660340
50 - Endemic Birds of Cuba 
Nils Navarro
ISBN-13: 9780990941910
50 - Feathers: Identification for Bird Conservation 
Marian Cieslak
ISBN: 8392441001
50 - Field Guide to North American Flycatchers: Empidonax and Pewees 
Cin-Ty Lee(Author), Andrew Birch(Illustrator)
ISBN: 9780691240626
50 - Field Guide to the Birds of Colombia 
Miles McMullan
ISBN-13: 9780982761557
50 - Field Guide to the Birds of Machu Picchu and the Cusco Region, Peru 
Barry Walker
ISBN-13: 9788496553972
50 - Fieldbook of the Birds of Ecuador 
Miles McMullan
ISBN-13: 9780982761533
50 - Finding Australian Birds: A Field Guide to Birding Locations 
ISBN-13: 9780643097667
Tim Dolby(Author), Rohan Clarke(Author)
50 - Guide to Seabirds of Southern Africa 
Peter G Ryan
ISBN-13: 9781775845195
50 - Guide to the Birds of Honduras 
Robert J Gallardo
ISBN-13: 9789992649978
50 - Guide to the Manta & Devil Rays of the World 
Guy Stevens, Daniel Fernando, Marc Dando, Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara
ISBN: 9780995567399
50 - Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World 
Eugene M McCarthy
ISBN: 0195183231
50 - Identification Guide to Birds in the Hand 
Laurent Demongin (Author), Hervé Lelièvre (Translated by), George Candelin (Translated by)
ISBN-13: 9782955501900
50 - Identification Guide to European Passerines, 2nd edition 
Lars Svensson
ISBN: 9163011182
50 - Important Bird Areas of the Americas 
BirdLife Conservation Series Volume: 16
ISBN-13: 9789942995902
50 - Mexico: Trees / Árboles 
Enrique Leal C, Ruth Rodríguez
ISBN: 9781888538663
50 - Mexico: Tropical Fruit 
Enrique Leal C
ISBN: 9780984010783
50 - Moult, Ageing and Sexing of Finnish Owls 
Heimo Mikkola
ISBN-13: 9789519826318
50 - National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America (7th edision) 
Jon L Dunn(Author), Jonathan Alderfer(Author), Paul Lehman(Illustrator)
ISBN-13: 9781426218354
50 - Nightjars of the World Potoos, Frogmouths, Oilbird and Owlet-nightjars 
Nigel Cleere
ISBN: 9781903657072
50 - North American Ducks, Geese and Swans: Identification Guide 
Frank S Todd
ISBN-13: 9780888390936
50 - Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean 
Scott Weidensaul
ISBN-13: 9780547840031
50 - Peterson Reference Guide to Woodpeckers of North America 
Stephen A Shunk
ISBN-13: 9780618739950
50 - Seabirds The New Identification Guide 
Peter Harrison m.fl.
ISBN: 9788416728411
50 - Terns of North America 
Cameron Cox
ISBN: 9780691161877
50 - The Birder's Guide to Africa 
Michael Mills(Author), Tasso Leventis(Illustrator)
ISBN-13: 9780620717250
50 - The Book of Eggs 
Mark E Hauber
ISBN-13: 9781782400479
50 - The Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand 
Barrie Heather
ISBN-13: 9780143570929
50 - The Hand Guide to the Birds of New Zealand 
Hugh Robertson
ISBN-13: 9780143570936
50 - The Helm Guide to Bird Identification 
Keith Vinicombe
ISBN-13: 9781408130353
50 - The Helm Guide to Bird Identification: An In-Depth Look at Confusion Species 
Keith Vinicombe (Author), Alan Harris (Illustrator), Laurel Tucker (Illustrator)
ISBN-13: 9781408130353
50 - The New Birds of Kazakhstan 
Arend Wassink
ISBN-13: 9789081146203
50 - Vagrancy in Birds 
Alexander Lees and James Gilroy
ISBN 9781472964786
50 - Winter Birds 
Lars Jonsson
ISBN-13: 9781472942814
50 - Woodpeckers of the World 
Gerard Gorman
ISBN-13: 9781408147153