Here's a top way to do a bit of birding-related stuff whilst whooshing along in the car. Yes, you could try to add to your "in-car-list" , which is the obvious thing, or your "trip-list" which is, of course, very very important, but you know all about them already. You could spend the journey boasting about all your birding exploits, and, of course, listening to the other passengers boasting about theirs, but that can only go on for a so long ...a few weeks maybe.Then there's silly questions ... which birds are also a bird spelled backwards ... that sort of nonsense. But this one, ghostbirds, is an endless source of ..well, I don't know what it's an endless source of, but it's fun anyhow.And you can do it whilst driving at night as well ...as the bishop said to the actress. Let's see what a "ghost" is shall we .... then you'll know what it's all about. TREECREEPER hey, there's a treecreeper TREECREEPER ooooo .... it's disappearing ! R C E now it's just the "ghost" of a treecreeper. So is CPE ..... TREECREEPER and RER .....TREECREEPER TREECREEPER (in many ways !) .... it's as if most of the letters have just blown away in the recent gales ! ...... leaving just a "ghost" of the original, complete word. And .. there's loads of other ghosts of treecreeper..... ERP EEC RRR CPR ..... But what has this got to do with driving along our majestic highways ? You're driving along and you see this numberplate .... GD08 RCE You concentrate on the 3-letter bit .................. RCE Whooo! that RCE .... that's the "ghost" of a treecreeper !! 1 point to me ! Hey .. it's also the ghost of Cream-coloured Courser ! Another point ! And Great-Crested Grebe ! Another point. Crumbs !! Remember, it's what's left standing after the other letters have been stolen by those notorious gangs of alphabet thieves trying to complete their sets. Let's try another one .... that number plate up at the top ... H41 RDO Just look at the RDO bit. Think of it as all that's left after a swarm of nasty Audubon's Lettergobblers have snaffled all the others..... . ...or a bit like those shop signs where some of the letters have fallen off ! What bird could RDO have been before various letters fell off ? For a start, we've got our old favourite ... Cream-coloured Courser !! Cream-coloured Courser Yes ! Another point. But there's a much simpler and shorter bird that has RDO as its ghost. I'm sure you can find it ... not that there's many of them about these days. And you can probably find more of your own RDO ghosts. Here's some more ghostbirds for you to fathom out ..... ... most of them should be easy enough... .... right then ... music time ..... I'm going to put this on again because I like it ... and it's wordy ...... WSH ... "Nur ein Wort" ..... and I hope you like it too. And, of course, WSH is a "ghost" of WHITE'S THRUSH Think of it like this ... a birder finds a White's Thrush ... his life's main triumph. So he spells out WHITE'S THRUSH" on his lawn with Crocus bulbs so in the spring it will spell out his top birding glory ... but only a W, S and H come up ! And he's so disappointed, he gives up the ghost. I've now explained all this ghost stuff about 231 different ways .... cripes. RDO .. TURTLE DOVE by the way. and ... obviously ... SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHER There's probably others if you're desperate for points. So ... next time you're out driving, or even strolling through the town, why not do a bit of "ghostbirding" with the parade of passing number-plates ?
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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