The Sandved family hails from Denmark, the land of the Vikings, where the Emperor in Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales had no clothes and where endemic teak trees grow tall and straight for elegant Viking ships to create havoc among their neighbors far and wide.
Weary of all the killings in the Viking years, the Sandved’s modified their behavior and began making elegant Danish furniture and eventually settled peacefully in the scenic town of Stavanger, southern Norway, where the family started the “Sandved Nursery” with flowers, petals and peas.
Kjell believes he can still see in his mind’s inner eyes how the gardener preserved peas by pressing down metal lids on cans one after the other, sealing each can of hot green peas, again and again.  
In 1918 his father, Alf Michael Bloch Sandved, earned his medical degree, summa cum laude, in Berlin and returned to Norway. He brought with him antique French curved legs furniture and a Blüthner piano, on which Kjell’s mother loved to play classic pieces by Mozart, Chopin and Liszt, instilling in the boy an early appreciation for classical music.
Kjell was born October 20, 1922, in the world’s most beautiful Hardangerfjord, where his father had become the district physician.  One of his earliest memories, perhaps at 4, was sitting in the window looking out at the majestic mountains along the fjord with its small, picturesque white houses, watching ocean liners pass by while his mother played her piano.

KJELL’S FAMILY
To reach his widely dispersed patients in the fjord, his father had two choices:  the earliest hand–crank starting Model T Ford or his old–fashioned white motorboat with straight front bow.
Kjell still remembers a scene that took place when he was three four years old. “Somehow I had gotten myself inside the fenced-in turkey yard when the turkey, as tall as I was, ran over and loudly starting cackling right in my face. “I screamed right back until my father suddenly appeared, kneeling down, and rescued me.” This memory of his father bending down to save him from the turkey is the only image of him still imprinted on Kjell’s mind. His father died in the spring of 1927, from an infection received from a patient.

FIRST LOVE
Kjell remembers so well his first love. He must have been about 4 or 5 years old. His mother had rented out two rooms in their house to an American journalist’s family with their young daughter, Kari.
One day his mother was holding Kjell in her arms in the yard, near “his” apple tree.  Kjell held an apple in one hand and his father’s most precious stamp album, given to Kjell as a special keepsake, in the other hand. 
Over to Kjell and his mother came that lovely little girl in a colorful red dress, and Kjell melted. All he wanted to do was to give Kari his precious stamp album and the apple. His mother asked him why, but Kjell was too embarrassed to know what to say. His mother, just smiling, gave Kari the apple but held on to the stamp album. 
To Kjell’s sorrow Kari left with the apple, but not with the stamp album.  After that episode Kjell lost his interest in stamp collecting and gave it to his brother  but he still remembered the girl’s name:  Kari Winger.  “I still love her in my mind.”

FUN AND GAMES
Before the first grade school year, Kjell and the neighbor children used to play “hide and seek” games around the neighbor houses until evening when their mother’s called them in for dinner.
From his earliest childhood he liked to build and create things. It didn’t matter what – just anything. He recalls most vividly one creation in particular around 1928, when an American journalist family rented two rooms in their large house.
Being proud of having learned to speak English, Kjell asked the mother of the 5–year old boy, “May I make a swivel crane to your boy?”
“Yes, you may,” was the delightful reply.
With a 10–inch stick in the sand, some spools of thread and an empty matchbox, Kjell attached a piece of thin metal wire and made a small swivel crane, filled the box with sand and hoisted it up a few inches in the air. They would then swing the box full of sand around in a half circle, depositing the contents a few inches away, move it all back, emptying it and starting all over. Repeating it again and again, the children were both happy.
During the wintertime the children used to build a five–foot tall ski–jump of compacted snow.  Each “ski–jumper” was a coke bottle filled with ice. The winner was the one who got his bottle to jump the farthest.
Above the hilltop of their home, Kjell and his friends used to build small hut in a trees. One particular  – the best – was connected with a short, horizontal gangplank to the nearby, slightly higher tree with a good view of the entire fjord. On this high, tiny platform they could watch small and large passing ships and yodel in Indian/Tarzan style; “Yahooooo!” as loud as they could. That must have been around 1930, when F.D.R. had a small magazine clip on his desk; “Let unconquerable gladness dwell.” Today Kjell still has clippings, pictures and memento taped up all over their crowded walls.

LEARNING
Independent by nature, self–directed courses of all kinds always appealed to Kjell: Engineering, languages, speed–reading, repairing radios, music and history. In grade school, it became popular to build crystal radio receivers from schematics using a condenser, a frequency regulator, antennae and a pair of headset phones to hear music from nearby radio stations without the use of electricity or a batteries. He soon became an avid shortwave radio amateur, contacting likeminded ham friends the world over in the Morse code. The first time Kjell got America on his short wave receiver, he couldn’t have been more impressed by a sonorous, deep voice intoning; “This is Schenectady short wave radio station, New York, New York, reporting to the world.”
When he was about ten, his mother bought him his first small, 16-foot typical Norwegian high–stemmed fjord boat (Total cost: 50– kroner, equaling $8). Kjell stitched the sails himself.
Whenever his mother needed fish for dinner, he either rowed the boat just 5–10 minutes out in the fjord or he angled the fishes with mussels, baiting them from the pier.
In the summertime he used to spear flounders close to shore from his rowboat. They usually hid in 6” x 15” small patches of fine sand between the ever-present wave–rounded rocks all along the fjord at a depth of about 10 feet.
Surface reflection makes it impossible to spot flounders, so Kjell built a square, cone–shaped viewing box with a piece of glass at the bottom. At the top of the box, he made the opening narrower to fit his face. Leaning over the side of the boat, looking through the viewing box, he could fairly easily spot a flounder by the angular shape of its head.
To catch the fish Kjell used a long, thin bamboo pole ending in a 3–prong fork. As the pole comes hurtling down, the flounder sense the bamboo coming so Kjell had to aim his pole about 10 inches in front of the flounder’s face.
His mother had flounder for dinner that day. . . it was the best of times.

LABOR OF LOVE
Kjell always liked to work and he continued to take all sorts of courses and programs on engineering, farming, languages, electricity, literature, building and later took self-directed courses at the University and started repairing radios. He was interested in everything under the sun.
He was never interested in looking for a job. Helping others, yes, but not if it involved somebody telling him what to do. “Perhaps,” he comments, “I am somewhat like a farmer who simply likes to plow his field and sow his own corn when he feels the time has come to plow his field and sow his own corn.” The main thing in life, he feels, is to help others and to be happy.
In his late teens, Kjell was in search of tuition to enroll in various University courses and started selling subscriptions for Norway’s first encyclopedia of classical music to be published by Dreyer Publishing Co., Oslo.
The subscriber would pay 10 Kroner (U.S. $1.50) per month and would receive the book when it was fully printed and paid for about a year later. Talking himself warm about the beauty of a Beethoven’s symphony, Braham’s piano concerto, Italian Bel Canto operas, the elegance of Saint Saëns, etc., he sold subscriptions like hotcakes.
Before long he realized that his enthusiastic babblings were lies, at least wishful thinking to earn money so he went back to the publisher, telling him straight out: “I am a fake.” What do you mean he asked.
“The information in our sales brochure is full of bone–dry historic facts; Names of composers, their compositions, dates, times, places, etc., so Kjell went “What do you mean?” the publisher answered.
“I have been telling our prospective customers that the book will inform them to appreciate classical music more. Bout our book is a bone dry register of who, what, where and when … Customers won’t learn a thing. We have to change the format of this encyclopedia so customer may truly learn to enjoy classical music. We must give the subscribers what we promise them.”
The publisher had his answer ready:  “We can’t change things now. You know that. You are the best salesman I have. Go out and sell!”
His negative attitude hit Kjell like a rock in the head, and without thinking, he confronted him loudly with a strong; “If you won’t change the text, I will! I know customers would like to learn and to enjoy classic music.”
Leaning back in his comfortable leather chair, the publisher’s answer came out loud and clear; “Yes, you do that. In the meantime you just go out and sell and earn money.”

DECISIONS
Leaving the publisher’s office that summer 1947, he went straight to the Oslo University library in search of interesting information about composers, their lives and music:  Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven Richard Strauss, etc.
With an armful of books Kjell and his mother sat out in their family’s garden, planned and wrote a sales brochure for a more interesting volume on composers’ lives and works.
Seeking collaborators and financial support required another year he used the same monthly full year pre–advance payment system Dreyer had used, a sales procedure unthinkable today.
In his research he had noticed an old book in the Oslo University library with wood coverings and wondered if such coverings might work with his publication. He presented the idea to the owner of Norway’s largest plywood factory, the famous Wagnerian soprano, Kirsten Flagstad.
She was enthusiastic from day one. It was just her cup of tea. Struggling literally day and night, Kjell presented her with his proposal and plan: 
Each book would be 250 pages, weigh 7 lbs., 2 oz., and have two 7 ½” x 10 ¼” x ¼ inch thick, lacquered & beautifully polished African ebony mahogany book plates as covers.
For that purpose, he designed a “20–mahogany plates lacquer–dipping container” about 20 by 30 inches and a foot deep. This contraption slowly and repeatedly dipped 20 plates up and down, up and down into the lacquer at a slight angle to control dripping. Kjell actually got dizzy from inhaling the lacquer fumes.
After drying, the plates were cut and polished to perfection. The company ended up with thousands of excess mahogany plates, which eventually were sold for fancy office paneling.

SUCCESS
With leatherback and polished African mahogany covers, the richly illustrated “MUSIKKENS VERDEN” (“The World of Music”) encyclopedia of Classic Music became a great success. Eighty thousand copies were distributed in Norway alone. At that time the population of Norway was only just under 3 million people, as a fifth of the population had previously migrated to the U.S.
The encyclopedia was subsequently revised and published in 10 different languages. Eighty percent of the publishers chose to use mahogany plates for book covers; the rest used normal leather bindings.

DENMARK
In 1950 Kjell established a publishing company in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the distribution of a revised Danish edition.  He had a helper, Kirsten, in the Danish office. He later met her again in Rome at the Spanish steps, next to the famed Fontana di Trevi, the most beautiful fountain in the city.  She was wearing a fiery red dress and sitting next to her parents on the famous Spanish steps in front of Italy’s famous Via dei Condotti.  She became the love of his life at first sight.
See the photograph: http://www.rome-apartments.com/spanish-steps-trevi-quarter.htm

THE TRIP TO ROME
During cold winter months, Rome has always been the sunshine city for Scandinavians, and thus it became the surprise setting for Kjell’s next project.
One day, having lunch with some friends on a side street restaurant next to the Spanish Steps, Kjell stumbled on two of the largest photography galleries of Europe: Alinari and Anderson. Oddly enough, both companies had extensive but different archives with thousands of  8” x 10” black & white and color photographs of worldwide painters, sculptures and artists’ creations.
For weeks on end, Kjell was totally engrossed in looking through the photographic files, selecting thousands of photographs for his next project.
His dream of a comprehensive book on animal life had totally evaporated, transformed into what was to become his next project, “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CLASSIC ART.” 
Returning to his publishing company in Oslo, he hired collaborators, writers and assistants to help with the work. After one and a half year’s time, the new book, also with exquisite polished mahogany covers, was produced in the same size and format as “THE MUSIC ENCYCLOPEDIA.” However, it never achieved the popularity of his music encyclopedia and was only printed in 25,000 copies in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish languages.

THE TRIP THAT CHANGED HIS LIFE
1959 Kjell sent a copy of the revised British edition of The World of Music to Harry N. Abrams Publisher, N.Y. who revised it for a U.S edition (Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 63–14095).
In the spring on 1960 he traveled to the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., via Portugal to buy photographs for a new encyclopedia of animals he had planned.
Changing planes in Lisbon for the trip to the U.S. Kjell got a window seat over the left wing’s motor, enjoying watching the city lights of Lisbon slowly vanish into the darkness of the night.
Just past the Portugal Azores islands, he was suddenly shocked to see flames shooting out of the left motor. Realizing they were all going down, Kjell was frozen by a sudden grip of fear and uncontrollable shaking. This was the end.
However, after an eternity, actually a few minutes, the crew was able to extinguish the flames and the pilot managed to turn around and land at the Azores. Next morning the flight returned to Lisbon where all the passengers were brought to a hotel for the two days it took the crew to repair the motor.
Kjell, never interested in photography, had brought with him a simple 35mm Kodak camera borrowed from his sister, During the layover, he took a photograph of a slow-moving stream full of tiny yellow flowers just outside Lisbon.
This photograph, No.3926 on his website; www.butterflyalphabet.com is Kjell’s very first photograph. It is seen under the picture category;  “HOME”; “Scenic” under the title; “Quiet Flows the Stream.” Being his first picture, it is lovingly displayed on his wall.

Years later, visiting Lisbon, he sought out the slowly trickling stream with the delicate yellow flowers. The stream was gone, the entire aria transformed into an industrial city with not a tree in sight. "Sic transit gloria mundi"

ARRIVING AT THE SMITHSONIAN
Kjell met with the Secretary who informed him that the museum did not have any archival photographs of animals but generously offered him a temporary office in the Museum so he could teach himself to take the photograph specimens he needed. Kjell was also introduced to a professional researcher next door, Barbara Bedette, who would be willing to help him.
He could hardly believe such generosity and mentioned that he was not the slightest interest in photography. Nevertheless, he was grateful for the offer to stay a few days.

THE LETTER THAT CHANGED KJELL’S LIFE

Packed away in a corner of the dusty attic of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), there was an old aromatic Cuban cigar box waiting to be discovered. One day, standing atop a ladder in the attic, Barbara and Kjell made a surprise discovery. Opening the cigar box, there it was; a silvery gleaming letter “F” woven into a golden tapestry of the wing of a Lepidoptera. Bringing it down and looking at it under the microscope, they were surprised. Not even a calligrapher could have improved the beauty of that letter “F.”

Within a few days their minds were made up:  If one single letter could be found on the wing of a Lepidoptera, there would be others out there flying around.
Kjell’s intended plan for a comprehensive book of animal life had suddenly evaporated.

TRIAL AND ERROR
Before he could start his search for more letters, there was a slight handicap to be overcome. “I had hardly clicked a camera before,” Kjell relates, “and knew nothing about photography.” Barbara an anthropologist knew nothing about butterflies.
Working day and night for two years, Kjell, the inveterate researcher delved into problems in micro & macro photography with strobe lights, modified an old Leitz microscope for toggle switch movie operation designed, jerry-rigged and glued together a portable “bellow” microscope with trigger cable and a close-up system with different German Zeiss Luminar, Leitz Summicron and a Zeiss Creutznach 50 and 125mm close-up lenses and eventually transforming it into a new portable micro photography close-up system.
Photographing museum butterfly specimens he soon realized that the touch of human hands often destroyed the fine powdery scale formations on faded museum specimens.  He had to photograph live butterfly in nature without killing them.
Another two years went by until he could master the critical aspects of still and movie photography, enabling him to start collaborate with the various NMNH biologists, still without any payment.

VOLUNTEER
During Kjell’s years as a visitor, he received monthly royalties from his encyclopedia publishing company in Oslo for living and film expenses for his copyrighted photographs. He freely lent scientists and Smithsonian lectures and publication. To avoid any future conflict of interest, he had his copyright name on each Kodak transparency.
As a member of the NMNH’s staff, Kjell and a friend had free access to the nearby WWII Navy Yard surplus storage buildings where they loved to rummage around for electronic devices.  Here they were running around to their heart’s content to create new photographic devices for film making.

TRAVELLING
Loaded with his customized electronic camera gear, Kjell embarked upon the quest of his life to find and photograph letters and numbers.
Trampling through rain forests and nature reserves in the upper Amazon, the Congo, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, he waded into thickets near pond and streams to seek out his elusive, half concealed wing designs on the wings of butterflies and moths. Happily he survived malaria, snakebite, leeches and numerous jungle ants, even the bite of a rabid dog that hung onto Kjell’s right thumb until nearby Indians chased the half-crazed dog away.
Through eons of evolutionary process, each letter and number had been etched into the wing of each butterfly and moth.  No one knew they were there until Barbara and Kjell discovered and photographed them.

EASY & DIFFICULT TO FIND
Of all the letters, symbols, numbers and design they found, the symmetrical “O”, the circle, the zero, and the eye are the most attention compelling design in. It attracts, it repels and is the easiest design to find in nature.
Letters like “C,” “D,” “I, “L,” “M,” was relatively easy to find. Asymmetrical letters, however, particularly “B,” “H,” “K,” “Q,” “T,” & “X,” more difficult.
The most difficult to find was the asymmetrical ampersand “&”of which he only found one. It had taken him 24 years.

THE BUTTERFLY ALPHABET
With the appointment of a new Secretary, S. Dillon Ripley in 1975 a renewal of educational activities took place in the Smithsonian. In his new “Smithsonian” magazine, he announced Kjell’s discovery with Ripley’s own poster; “ALL FINITE THINGS REVEAL INFINITY” and sent his poster to the Institution’s contributors. He had Kjell design and produce for the Smithsonian donors a limited edition 24” x 36” poster; “CELEBRATION OF NATURE” with 77 of his best photographs of animals and plants worldwide.

BUTTERFLY GARDENING
They then made their first 18” x 24” #1 Gold Edition “Butterfly  Alphabet” poster. It struck a cord in the nation, initiating new interest in Butterfly Gardening and butterfly rearing in our lower-grade classrooms. Today we have over 300 small and large butterfly gardens.

NAMES IN BUTTERFLY LETTERS
They then started making names for individuals with the slogan:

Nothing is more beautiful
     than the name of the one you love
      in Butterfly Letters

The first name was Barbara’s. The next two names were presented by the Smithsonian secretary to Queen Elizabeth II and to Emperor Hirohito during their visits to the Institution and the Holy Sea.
Kjell remember so well the day when Emperor Hirohito was presented his name on a wooden plaque by the Smithsonian secretary, “EMPEROR HIROHITO.” The Emperor turned to Kjell and said the words, “You crever Americans.” Those were the only words he ever spoke in English, as he had translators with him at all times.  It was interesting for Kjell to see his alcohol preserved specimens, as the emperor was a marine biologist by choice.

BIOLOGICAL MOVIES
Kjell’s first 16 mm biological movie was for Dr. Mary Rice, S.I. Marine Biological station, Fort Pierce, Fl. on the interaction of brackish-water Sipunculid Peanut larvae in a Petri dish.
He first modified our new Zeiss microscope by attaching a common joystick from a child’s toy plane with a hundred-to-one gear reduction motor, which he attached directly to the “X” and “Y” stage.
Placing a Petri dish with brackish water and the larvae on the sub stage it allowed him to slowly follow and film the aggressive male “take-over” behavior of a male burrowing larvae during their tube building. Mary was happy.
His first 16 mm underwater scuba movie was at S.I. Carrie Bow Keys marine station, Belize.  He documented how the long antennas of the cleaner shrimps continuously touch the mouth of the fish. Eventually the fish changes its desire to eat the shrimp and instead opens its mouth to let the shrimp enter to clean its teeth. 
Kjell found it remarkable how the various fishes seemed to line up to a degree and not try to get ahead of other fishes waiting to have their teeth cleaned.
In the chemistry room Kjell had great fun carefully transferring minute amounts of different chemicals onto glass slides, filming in time-lapse, slow motion sequences of crystal formation occurring when tiny amounts of chemicals come into contact with each other, particularly during melting, sublimation and evaporation at various temperatures.
It was an interesting experience in color, although Kjell did not know what each end result would be. However, he did take notes, and a teacher later wrote him that some scenes were successfully being used in student courses. (See Smithsonian registered accolades, with numerous examples of Kjell’s ideas, 1968. The film is still available free by NMNH.)

SPECIAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Kjell continued to present minor suggestions and proposals for the Smithsonian staff to consider, such as random access projectors with relevant information for various halls. Eventually he started lecturing on nature photography and animal behavior for the Smithsonian Associates lectures series.
Not expecting any payments, he was gratefully surprised when after two years of volunteer work; he received his first check in the amount of $1,500.00.  Eventually he became a regular participant in the various Smithsonian Associate lecture programs and exhibits.

MOST DIFFICULT PHOTOGRAPH

In the late 60’s he photographed from the air the Angel Falls in southwest Venezuela. It is the world’s highest uninterrupted waterfall, dropping 3212 feet down the mountain and was named for American aviator and adventurer James C. Angel who first sighted the fall 1935.

Many miles below Angel Falls, we come to Canaima waterfall. Kjell was told that at the bottom of the fall there was a narrow ledge of a few feet, behind which a good swimmer could actually carefully crawl up on and stand.

A truly risky undertaking since the down-rushing waterfall has a tendency to roll back along the bottom, making footholds rather precarious. Kjell couldn’t wait to see it.

It didn’t take long. A guide with an underwater camera paddled a guide and Kjell close to the narrow water opening in the fall, enabling them to swim and climb through an opening onto the narrow ledge where they could stand upright. “We tried to speak to each other,” Kjell relates, “but nothing could be heard as the roar of the waterfall inches in front of our faces was deafening.”

A few swallows had miraculous found the narrow entrance through the cascading waterfall where they could fly in, build their nests onto the wall right at the height of our faces. We saw 2 small dripping wet nests, one with 3 baby birds in it. This species of swallow are able to fly right through a narrow area of diminished water to feed its young.

“From this narrow ledge behind the roaring waterfall I got my life’s most unique photographs,” Kjell tells us. “I look at the one with the setting sun every day.

BUTTERFLY PARTY
“At one time I had hired two workers from Manaus University to assist me in my photography a few miles to the west. Near the path we were walking I noticed a still standing half rotting tree with glistening fermenting fluid slightly seeping down from it’s bark. Walking near the tree I noticed two large Brazilian Nymphalid butterflies on one side of the bark. Getting closer to the tree I noticed they were both swaying and staggering about in the most unusual, relaxed manner.
Suddenly I realized what was happening. “They were drunk! In fact, they were so loaded that I could gently pick one up and re-position it for a better angle of photography and for the butterflies to imbibe another undisturbed butterfly cocktail.”

PHOTO OF BUTTERFLY  PARTY:   JASON PUT PIC IN HERE

The photograph is reproduced on page 18 in my 1978 book; “BUTTERFLIES,” Harry N, Abrams, Inc,N.Y.The photograph is also reproduced on the website: www.butterflyalphabet.com.

THE CONSUMATE GENTELMAN
A genteel Ornithologist, a secret service agent during the war, and a lover of the mysterious and intriguing, the ever–smiling, courteous S. Dillon Ripley was the consummate gentleman, as was his best friend and brother in arms, the colorful Herbert Axelrod (tax evasion, 2 years in jail, fleeing to Cuba, etc.).
A Wikipedia New Yorker article, August 26, 1950, comments that Ripley “reversed the usual pattern where spies posed as ornithologists in order to gain access to sensitive areas. Instead he used his position as an intelligence officer to go birding in restricted areas.”  He rapidly became the Smithsonian’s lightning rod of inspiration.
Keenly interested in Kjell’s unending proposals, he tried for years to uncover the Norwegian’s motivation. What was he trying to achieve? How come he initiated all this volunteer work, programs and exhibits for several years without any regular salary? Was Kjell really the author and publisher of the Encyclopedia of classic music bound in mahogany covers and revised for ten languages?   (Of course Kjell had numerous contributors and writers.)
To find out more about Kjell he sent him to his friend Axelrod’s beautiful home in Long Island, New York, to photograph some small, whimsical goldfish in his aquarium while Axelrod himself gave Kjell a solo virtuoso performance of Mozart’s violin concerto.
Was it Ripley’s hope that Kjell would reveal his knowledge of the famous violin concerto by uttering some significant comments on the beauty of Axelrod’s rendition of this classic piece, thus indicating that Kjell truly was truly the real creator of the world’s most distributed Encyclopedia of Classic Music?
Kjell had not the slightest suspicion and never found out why he had been sent to Axelrod’s home to photograph a skittish little goldfish, and he certainly had no thought about uttering sophisticated comments on Axelrod’s violin performance. But he greatly enjoyed the next day photographing miniature orchids in his 2 large orchid houses.

A SURPRISE DISCOVERY
In 1966 a team of 3 employees from NMNH traveled to the University of Colombia, Bogota, to collect and document botanical specimens for a NMNH planned new high altitude (10,000 feet) Rainforest Hall.
When they arrived early one morning at the designated area (among ruins by earlier rebel forces), it looked to Kjell as if the mountain was covered with trees. Reaching the site, Kjell saw to his surprise that the “trees” were Bromeliad plants, Espeletia grandiflora. These plants normally grow as epiphytes high up in trees.  However at this high altitude they grow as 15-foot-tall “trees” with real bark as in our North American pines. After several weeks we had enough material to create the new Smithsonian exhibit and shipped all material back to the museum.
For Kjell, however, this trip became a revelation of a completely different nature; He was to witness an aspect of the spectrum of sunlight about which he had not the slighted knowledge beforehand. This is a highly interesting phenomenon that takes place worldwide each morning and to a greater degree at high altitudes; the immediate reversal in the color spectrum of early morning sunlight.
One day, well before sunrise, Kjell climbed up to the highest point above the 10,000 ft. mountain peak where the team had collected material for the S.I. rainforest exhibit.
Resting on a rock, he was watching and waiting for the first seconds when the sun would suddenly peep up over the horizon, miles away from where he was sitting.  Close by were patches of flowers he knew to be red, and he wondered why all the flowers looked more darkish brown than red.
However, the very second the sun’s direct light peaks over the distant horizon, the full complement of the entire color spectrum took over, and the color of all the flowers were suddenly restored to their normal brilliant red.
The reason soon became clear:  before any direct light from the sun peeps up above the distant horizon, all the longer frequencies of light in the spectrum, the reds, travel straight out in all directions.
None of the longer frequencies are reflected down to earth by the presence of smaller, finely suspended particles. Only the shorter frequencies of the wavelengths in the spectrum, the blue and lilacs, are to a higher degree reflected down to earth by the finely suspended particles in the sky thus making the sky to appear blue.
For Kjell, this daily immediate reversal in the entire spectrum of early morning sunlight before and after the sun emerges above the distant high mountain became a never to be forgotten revelation by nature. He hopes that someone reading this would take such a trip of revelation. If so he would like the individual to write him and Kjell would respond.

THE VOYAGE OF “THE BEAGLE”
In the past Kjell usually enjoyed visiting the Darwin exhibit in the British Museum where they have on exhibit a replica of the H.M.S. ship The Beagle that carried Darwin around the world.
In his landmark book, “On the Origin of Species”, Darwin pushed our evidence of life on Earth back another 3 billion years, forever teaching us the only way to learn how life evolves was through amassing a vast databases of genetic information.
Now, one hundred thirty-six years later, Kjell fully realized it was just a question of time before Smithsonian’s NMNH would require a Galápagos exhibit where cactus grows like trees, and the fittest surviving finches lives in harmony with numerous other unique species.
The time had come. It was 1966.
With the Colombia rainforest expedition completed and the crew returning to the Smithsonian, Kjell decided to fly over to visit the nearby Galápagos Islands, where he immediately started photographing pertinent habitats and collecting botany and bird specimens for the new Smithsonian Exhibit he had just planned in his head.
First he documented the finches with their different shaped beaks, some broad for cracking nuts, some thinner for pulling out wiggling larvae from holes in the branches, etc.
Subsequently, Kjell went over to Isabella Island, where he watched and filmed gigantic endemic spotted Galápagos tortoises as they laboriously struggled up the relatively steep, rock–strewn pass to reach a small bathing pool. They all seem to make this return trip to their chocolate-colored “spring water” where several tortoises were leisurely swimming, drinking and mating. A never-to-be-forgotten sight.  
The dominant item in the exhibit would first be the Giant Prickly Pear Cactus, Opuntia echios. It grows as tall as a tree all over the Island with bark, similar to the Espeletia grandiflora he had seen in Colombia, and indistinguishable from the bark of our North American pine trees. 
The interior of the cactus is a heavy network of fibrous branching. For transportation back to the U.S., the interior had to be removed. Only the lighter, vulnerable exterior bark remained and had to be strengthened.
With a 3–foot long “paint brush,” Kjell twice painted the entire inside of both ends of his specimen with latex. Then a 7–foot long strong wooden box had to be made for the cactus tree. Numerous old car inner tubes were cut up in long strips to suspend the cactus bark along the middle of the box. This avoided the possibility of any part of the bark touching the inside of the box during possibly stormy shipment return.
After nearly four weeks the job was finally done and all was shipped back by boat to the Smithsonian. 
At his return the director asked him to participate in the monthly Chairmen’s meeting where the question came up, “Who told you to do this?” 
“Nobody,” was Kjell’s answer. “Years ago I used to enjoy visiting the British Museum with its informative Darwin Galápagos exhibit, and I fully realized we needed one.”  In a scenario that was to be repeated many times during Kjell’s years with Smithsonian, those in the meeting room laughed and told him to go down and just do his job. 
Various outside artists were engaged to build and paint the NMNH Galápagos exhibit, relying on Kjell’s collections of Kodachromes. The slides were projected on a screen while the exhibit was planned, built and painted. 
The day after the outside engaged workers had completed their work on the exhibit, all Kjell’s original Kodachromes and his slide–projecting drum were gone, had disappeared, never to be found again. The following year the Galápagos Darwin exhibit in NMNH was opened to the public.
 
THE REAL KJELL?
After his return from Galápagos, Kjell was asked by Secretary Ripley to photograph his hand holding a preserved Galápagos finch specimen that Darwin himself had collected, dated and labeled with information in Darwin’s own handwriting.  Secretary Ripley smiled, wondered - hinted to - but never once asked Kjell why he constantly could come up with his programs, proposals and suggestions. No questions. He just smiled, waiting for Kjell to tell him who the real Kjell was.
The simple answer was that Kjell did not know himself. From his earliest childhood he was just happy doing something, creating anything. That was all there was to it.  He had never even had any interest in getting a formal degree in biology.

ADELIE PENGUINS
In 1971, the National Science Foundation sent Kjell to Cape Crozier Antarctic research station, McMurdo, to produce a documentary movie on how the Leopard Seals prey upon the 300,000 member Adelie penguin colony.
The group left New Zealand Invercargill airport and landed next morning on the flat surface adjacent to the Antarctic Ross Ice Shelf -- the largest floating ice mass in the world. The team of three was bivouacked in a U.S. military portable Quonset hut near the colony. Heating and food preparation were by a circular metal coal-fired stove with a central pipe going straight up through the ceiling.
Each morning Kjell, together with hungry body-surfing penguins would ‘slip and slide’ in the snow down to the half-mile distant beach where they would congregate at the water’s edge. Here in the middle of hundreds of penguins, Kjell would set up his movie cameras and film the day’s events.
Their deadly enemies, the Leopard seals, were waiting, patrolling the shore, back and forth, back and forth. The restless penguins did the same thing along the water’s edge. No penguin would dare to be the first to go out. Finally, the crowd of panicky penguins becomes so large that one unlucky bird is pushed out to be the first penguin. As soon as that happens, they all follow out to sea in a single straight stream of panicky penguins.
The first penguin is grabbed by a waiting Leopard Seal. With a quick 90-degree swirl of its head, the predator throws the hapless penguin way up in the air as part of the seal’s ‘catch and throw’ feeding game that follows. The Leopard Seal throws it up in the air again and again.
One day, sitting close to the water Kjell noticed a young inquisitive penguin was playing and pulling with Kjell’s shoelaces until the knot loosend and the baby penguin rolled over. Kjell gently bent down and soon had the young penguin calmly settling on his lap.

SECOND ANTARCTIC TRIP, 1972
The next year he returned to Antarctica to finish the documentation of how the Leopard Seals and the Adelie Penguins coordinate their alternate use of a breathing holes in thick ice. An underwater movie camera was suspended under the ice to film their behavior.
Once a Leopard Seal was dozing off close to the breading hole preventing the returning penguin to get a gulp of fresh air. The penguin must have been completely out of air as it finally took the chance of suddenly shooting up at full speed through the breading hole literary inches past the nose of the surprised leopard seal.
An ice burg iceberg nearly the size of New England had being slowly pealing off from the main Antarctica Ross Ice Shelf. Rounding Cape Horn the ice burg would become a hazard, blocking or endangering the east-going shipping lanes.
It was impressive to observe of how the majestic 800-foot deep iceberg, in spite of   westerly blowing winds and giant waves undercutting the front at its waterline was being forced out of the sound by the easterly directed currents to sail further east to disappear into its own watery grave.

EVOLUTION
During 40 years rainforest travels Kjell became increasingly aware of the evolutionary behavior of advertizing in nature.
Advertising is by no means the sole prerogative of us humans. Mother Nature bestowed upon all living forms ample choices of visual, chemical and olfactory means for survival. One of the more active means lies in advertizing. That implies even lying in advertising.
Kjell here presents here five delightful examples of cheating in advertising to avoid being eaten and possibly risk extinction between:

BIRDS, SPIDERS, FLIES, MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES:
In certain families of tropical rainforest birds, spiders, flies, moths and butterflies constitute a significant portion of their food.  Based on this specific choice of food, a remarkable mimicry and concealment relationship has developed between birds, moths and butterflies.
In two different families of moths, Noctuidae and Geometridae, and in two different families of butterflies, Lycaenidae and Riodinidae, they all use means of taking advantage of both real and “false advertising” in order to survive.
Members of the above four families of butterflies and moths have evolved realistic images of either a spider or of a fly at the end of each hind wing as a lure to mislead the birds with the following message: “Do not peck on my central vulnerable body, but peck here on my tasty fake painting.”
When the bird swoops down to catch its intended prey, the butterfly or the moth that carries a fake image of either a spider or of a fly on its hind wings immediately spreads its wings out to the sides, away from its central vulnerable body as a last “fraction-of-a-second” visual message to the bird: “Redirect your attack away from my central body but towards the tasty imprinted fake image.”
The more realistic the image, the greater the chance that the bird will have enough time, literally in milliseconds, to redirect its attack towards the fake image, only to receive a beak full of dry butterfly scales, allowing the butterfly or the moth to quickly escape and live for another day.

1) 2426 Noctuidae:  Baorisa hieroglyphica Moth, Malaysia, has evolved two realistic–looking, fake images of the dorsal sides of a spider as invitations for the bird to peck there instead of pecking on the moth’s dorsal vulnerable body.

2) 2426a Noctuidae:  Baorisa hieroglyphica Moth, Malaysia, shows the detail of the dorsal side of the 8–legged spider for the bird to peck.
A close-up photo of the above approximately eleven- legged fake facsimile of an 8-legged spider. Unable to count, it just reinforces the birds perception that tasty spiders have lots of legs. Not even a sharp-brained bird can count.
When the bird swoops down to pick its tasty morsel, it gets only a beak full of dry moth scales.

3) 7001 Geometridae:  Problepsis sp. Moth, Borneo. On the end of its hind wing the moth has evolved a realistic looking fake ventral side image of alluring spiders with 8 shiny eyes, redirecting the bird’s attack towards the fake spiders away from the moth’s tasty central body.

4) 9998 Lycaenidae:  Chlorostrymon maesites, Butterfly, Caribbean. This butterfly has evolved a realistic–looking fake image of the dorsal side of a red–eyed fly on each wing, receiving on dry wing scales.

5) 5206 Riodinidae:  Helicopis acis Butterfly, Brazil. This butterfly mimics the dorsal/ventral side of a long–legged silvery–spotted brown spider. The realistic design of a spider on the underside of each hind wing deflects the attack by the birds away from its vulnerable body.

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THE INSPIRING SECRETARY DILLON RIPLEY
Before Dillon Ripley retired, he sent Kjell with his associate on a plane to the Arizona Observatory to admire what Albert Einstein once saw. Peering into the gigantic telescope was for Kjell, a once-in-a-lifetime revelation:  Far, far away through the narrow, perhaps one degree “tunnel sight,” he could see an eternity of galaxies, black holes, replete with stars, suns, real or imagined planets, moons and earths, light years away.
How can we, less than dust in our blissful ignorance, ever believe that we should be the select, chosen few in the universe?  There must be an infinite number of us breathing little creatures all over in this unending universe of suns, earths and moons, evolving into existence, becoming extinct seconds in geological time, all with a purpose. Kjell was overwhelmed by his own total ignorance.
Albert Einstein was clear in his response when once asked the impossible question, “Do you believe in God?”  His straight answer:  “No, I believe in the mystery.” Semantics. God is the mystery.
Today, healthy and happy the 88 years young Kjell still jogs half an hour in the morning and late evening. He has built up a great debt of gratitude to the Smithsonian secretaries and directors who allowed him to collaborate, assist, propose and fulfill programs he felt could be of some importance – some were, some were not – for the world’s most remarkable educational institution:  The Smithsonian Institution.
                                                        IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES.

Kjell Bloch Sandved,
www.butterflyalphabet.com

End Note:
Through the years Kjell has accumulated a large collection of Kodachromes and Ektachromes on the interesting and importance  subject of “Mimicry & Concealment in Nature.” There is a distinct need for an in-depth comprehensive publication on this subject.
In the memory of our inspiring Secretary Dillon Ripley, Kjell would like to offer all the transparencies on this subject to a person in the Directors office.