A couple of posts back ( #1131] I was a bit irked that Peterson (RT) had "Eight questions to ask when you wanted to identify a bird" but he didn't actually tell us what they were. But this afternoon I think I found them. I was leafing through my extremely ancient 1969 edition of " A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe" which was written by Peterson, Mountfort and Hollom .... and an excellent book it is. It's still an excellent book despite its age and bashed-up-ness . It was the first "proper" field guide I ever had. Anyway .... within it I think I've found those " 8 Questions" of Peterson's ... ...........and here they are ....but actually, there's 8 +1 of them .... [1] What is its size ? [2] What is its shape ? [3] How does it behave ? [4] How does it fly ? [5] What are its Field Marks ? [6] Call notes and song ? [7] Where is it found ? [8] When is it found ? And the extra, all-important 9th one ... [9] CAUTION ! I've filled all the blank pages with all sorts of extra stuff .... phone numbers of local birders, French names of lots of birds, loads of underlining in the "species list", and for some unknown and totally gormless reason I've numbered all the birds from (1) Red-throated Diver right through to (471) Raven .... and then, even more preposterously, I've carried on right through all the "Accidentals" from (472) Wandering Albatross and finally (585) Daurian Jackdaw. Well, now you know the sort of nitwit I used to be ..and to a large extent, still am. And I'm fairly sure that most of us birders have done similar things ........ But now ... one of the finest songs you don't want to miss .... ..... plus a terrific video to go with it.
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If you look closely at our garden, on the left,there's two clothes lines, one white, one blue. This might, or might not, be important later. O yes, this morning for ~ 20 seconds a male Merlin landed on our clothes-line. And then ... unsportingly .... it flew off.... before I got a chance of a photo. We've had them in the garden before ... but usually they whizz through it and out the other side in a flash..or circle high above. There's been a Jay around recently too ... they come and go ... they'll be seen for a few weeks, then nowt for a few months, then one returns, it might be the same one .... or, indeed, not. That one below is an ancient one. Apparently it is going to pelt it down with rain all day ..... and we don't want to use the car because we don't want to run out of petrol in the current petroltankershortage or, if you prefer, " Benzintankwagenknappheit". But that's enough excitement for the morning ...... so.. bring on the music ... ... which, rather thematically, is "Tanz der Molekuele" ( Dance of the Molecules) .... which is, when you come to think about it, is all we are ! Trundling through Pete Dunne's " Tales of a Low-Rent Birder" there's a mention of Roger Tory Peterson's " System for Identifying Birds." There are, apparently , "Eight questions to ask when you wanted to identify a bird." But then he moves on to " Big Bird Races" and leaves the reader ( me) wanting to know what those eight things are. Grrrr! Dam and Blarst !! Maybe you lot out there could think about those eight things .... and tell me about them. There's that "comment" thing at the bottom ... and there's my email [email protected] I'm busy thinking what they might be right now.... and probably for a while longer. (Or, why not watch Judith Holofernes doing a minimalist version of " Danke, ich hab schon) As my more assiduous readers will remember, I'm still waiting for somebody somewhere to find that hidden-away elusive tape of The Big Bird Race. If you're too young to remember ( or too old) ,the whole day's antics ( antiques?) was filmed by,er, a film crew. And it was broadcast on the TV.... just the once ..... BUT .... I didn't get to see it. Maybe you didn't either. Grrrr. Those were the days when you couldn't simply "copy" whatever was on the box ... oh no. And I missed it .... because I did night classes at the local college ..... bah. I couldn't let my keen maths students down.... double bah. And the annoying thing is, now and then we hear of somebody finding some tape or other of ancient editions of Coronation Street or Latin for Beginners or whatever ..... or ancient photograph albums or diaries ..... lucky them. But NOBODY seems to have taped ( and kept)(up in some gloomy attic) The Big Bird Race. I wouldn't be surprised to find that a few days after my funeral that a tape of it turned up a smidgin too late. BUT .... I'm a "solutions" sort of person, so what I want is for them to DO IT AGAIN !!! WE should get every birder in the UK to encircle Sandy Beds brandishing huge placards insisting on " DOING THE BLASTED BIG BIRD RACE AGAIN OR ELSE !" That'll put the wind up'em. Way back in the 1990's when I lived right by a handy canal , most mornings I walked the dog along it, well, some of it, and kept copious records of everything. Quite a chunk of the sightings would no longer be gettable now, 21 years later. I'll tell you about them at the end. So.... here's the " summary" of what went on over those years of canal-birding. JANUARY starts the year quietly, and there is a possibility of frozen water in some years. Little Owls can be a welcome sound in the dark mornings. Goosanders may be in evidence, and this month gives the best chance of Pinkfeet. Snipe, though rarely seen, reach a peak of sorts with their guttural calling in the dark, largely due to the dog. FEBRUARY still has Goosanders and Little Owls, but the mornings now have enough light for birds to be seen rather that just heard. Movement begins with some flyover Lapwings and a light Skylark passage. Once MARCH arrives passage begins in earnest with Common Sandpipers ( earliest ever on 15/3), a light showing of Meadow Pipits peaking at 20/hr, and in the last week Chiffchaffs may arrive. Goosanders are still present and remaining Redwings may sing. Female Mallards begin to do their disappearing act as nesting gets under way. In 1990 this month featured a very brief Mandarin appearance ( 16:3:90). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well .... that's just the first three months ...... since then a lot has changed .... nearly all of it in a bad direction. Little Owls are now very rare indeed, you can forget the Common Sands, and Snipes have got much scarcer. Mipits have largely retreated back to their more natural salt-marsh half a mile away. So ... what we need now is a bit of music to soothe the weary soul ....... Indochine............... Le Manoir We all like to look at the "sightings book" at Grumbling Stumps ... but for many many months it was "removed" due to covid .... all we had then was the internet and the "sightings board" which I have to say, is often partially wishful thinking, out-of-date and/or obscured by the "wardens" who stand in front of said boards very effectively. But a few days ago, all of a sudden, it reappeared ! An actual book that we could write things on. Or in. The best bits are the laughably crap sightings. We have great fun writing sarcastic remarks about them. In the nicest possible way. You'll be surprised when I tell you that I wrote a rather "sarcastic" thingy about all that a while ago .... and here it is for you to admire ..... I don't know about other reserves etc, but at Grumbling Stumps the book in which we scribble our sightings has been kicked into the long grass during the pandemic ... and all we have now is a whiteboard at the entrance, which for 90% of the time is obscured by the crowd of "officials" in their little shed. Plus it is miles out of date and a trifle fictitious. The problem with that is, there's no feedback. In the Pre-Covid-Paradise we could write down our sightings, peruse the sightings of others ... and best of all, we could annotate them with sarcastic put-downs appended to dodgy sightings, and actual crossings-out of preposterous entries penned by nits, numpties, prannocks and twerps . You would be amazed, and probably have been, at the gormless old rubbish people write in them. There's various categories of crap .... [a] Terribel Spelin ...... Herrin at Witterbix Hide Treecripper up the tower Gret Spotty Woopeker at Mash Hide [b] Mysterious birds Little Spotty Speckle Freckly Willow Asymmetrick Flyingjay [c] Flights of imagination Tiny penguins in the reeds Three copperlating Granites at sea hide ( Grannies perhaps ?) Jack the Snip up the channel. [d] Irrelevances Strange man up the causeway. Too many Tanagers up the reserve (teenagers maybe ?) Cut the reedbeds much lower so we can see the Bitterns [e] Unlikely events Eleven men were walking backwards to the Lower Hide Naked female swimming up the main channel. An elderly couple fast asleep in the Prince Harry Hide. I'm sure you've all seen all sorts of similar nonsense .... and it would be wonderful if you could send me some good-uns and I could add them to the list. There's also comment thing down there for you to put them on. And there's my email ........ [email protected] ...and now, 'tis Music Time ........ the Nick Cave season trundles on ... That thing below is already on the House List. I hope you're all right jealous ! But this post isn't about that. 7pm yesterday ... I was looking over the houses from my front door, and a Little Egret Flew over southwards. Excellent. And that brings my House List to 99. I "sort of" "got" one a while ago, but it was a bit dodgy.... ...I saw one from a fair old distance away flying bang on towards my house ... and being pretty high up, it must have been spot-able had I actually been there. Which I wasn't. Perhaps I should call that an interim 98½-er. But now I don't have to worry ... this one was a genuine 99th. ...... and what will be #100 ? It could be what I was writing about yesterday .. a Waxwing. That would be a corker. BUT ... let's be more realistic... So ..what's the obvious big hole in my House List? To put it another way ..... what's the " commonest" bird I've not got on it ... (yet)? I'm thinking about it ........................................................................... Well .... what I'd really like as the 100th would be a Spoonbill. Rose-coloured Starling would be lovely. They've been fairly close in the past ...... bring it on ! And that fits well with the next in the rather sporadic Nick Cave season .... " I Need You" I was mighty miffed last winter. Round our way there weren't any. Nowt. Nothing. Zilch. And another Waxwing no-show would be an utter disaster ! Back in the days of The Observer's Book of British Birds we all drooled over the Waxwing page. Blimey ! Crumbs !! What a Corker !!! Everybody remembers their first one. 100 % Mine was twitched at the Big Supermarket in Windermere .... just the one, but that was good enough. The next step is finding one of your own. So ... there I was one cold winter morning cycling to work, and I suddenly squeaked to a sudden halt. I could hear Waxwings calling. I watched for a few minutes, counted 7 of them, and shot off to work.... and shot back in somebody's car along with several other bandwagoners .. and we got'em ! And the next step is to see LOTS of them .... and a year or two later, I found a huge flock up high in a tree on a blind bend .... parked the car a bit up the road, walked back, counted around 130 of 'em... brilliant. There was a huge puddle on the blind corner, and little chunks of them kept flying down to drink .... luckily, none of them got squodged... well. not while I was there anyway. The next step in the Waxwinging hierarchy is to get one on your house list. But unfortunately I haven't managed that ..yet .. despite having a garden surrounded by suitable berry-bearing bushes and trees. I nearly got them in the house list ... I was walking home, with 200m or so to go, when I spotted a big flock of them in a tall tree.... readers, I broke into a run, whizzed upstairs to my "office" in the hope that I might see them flying by ... but they never did. If only that tree had been another 10m tall. BUT .. it could still happen. I'm waiting When I walk round the town, I drive TSO ( The Significant Otter)=(The Wife) mad ..I just can't resist pointing out every spot where I've spotted Waxwings ... and there's quite a lot of them. And she's heard it all before about 378 times. And there's great pleasure in pointing them out to passers-by. They are dead chuffed to see them... and hear them. Mostly. SO ... We will all be distinctly displeased if there's none of them this winter. Irked ... peeved .. disgruntled .... down-in-the-dumps ..... Now ... let's have another lovely Kate & Anna McGarrigle song ........ That's a Monotonous Lark. And I suspect it lives a very monotonous life. Most of the time . I reckon that he/she's wondering what the hell he's going to do next. So ..... the birds wake up. Then they find food and eat it. Then, in the fullness of time, they have a shit. But then what ? They don't need to eat for a while. They don't really need to do anything much. Except in the breeding season. So ... what do they do ? Most of the time. Maybe they just keep on eating and eating and shitting . A few minutes of preening maybe. Occasionally they might have a scrap with a rival. But they can't do that all bloody day. And nor can the rival. And they can't hide all day .... boring ! Maybe they just do more and more sleeping. Most of the time. Does anybody know ? When they do eventually die, maybe 90% of the time it is from sheer, monotonous, stultifying boredom. Most of the time. The truth of the matter is, none of those top researchers can be arsed to study " bird boredom" ... there's no appeal in it, no excitement. Nobody wants to read an account of a " A Boring Uneventful Day in the life of a Robin." And nobody wants to write one. There's no money in it ... no book sales, no hour-long TV documentaries. No Ill Body, no Piss Crack'em. But now I've written a fascinating article about it on here, maybe somebody will have a go. But it won't be me. I'm sure you remember Wavely Newt, one of our top bird poets, and his bit of stuff. Anyway, enough of him ..... and some more of ME .... As any fule no , I've written quite a lot of bird poetry and birding poetry ... they're not the same thing. Not at all, at all. If you've (sadly) missed them, here's the links to them .... 200-all-my-stupid-bird-poems-in-one-place.html 300-another-collection-of-my-ridiculous-poems.html 400-the-latest-round-up-of-my-crap-verses.html 500-yet-another-rotten-ragbag-of-rancid-rhymes.html 600-lots-of-my-poems-from-posts-501-to-600.html 700-more-rollicking-rhymes-about-dicky-birds.html 800-the-latest-tranch-of-rubbish-poetry-verse-and-worse.html 900-yet-another-interminable-ragbag-of-versification.html 1000-yet-another-collection-of-my-poems-from-900-1000.html 1099-more-poetry-from-1000-1099.html So ... it's about time you read some proper bird poetry written by proper poets. it's quality stuff all this you know ..... Here's THE CORMORANT by "Anon" and partly by Naomi Royde Smith ... The common cormorant or shag Lays eggs inside a paper bag, The reason you will see no doubt ... It is to keep the lightning out. But what there unobservant birds Have never noticed is that herds Of wandering bears may come with buns And steal the bags to hold the crumbs. And now .. THIRTY POIPLE BIRDS by ( Anon of New York) Toity poiple boids Sitt'n on der coib A' choipin' and a' boipin An' eat'n doity woims. Next up ... THE BLEED'N' SPARRER by , er , ANON ( A Londoner, I think) We 'ad a bleed'n' sparrer wot Lived up a bleed'n spaht, One day the bleed'n rain came dahn An' washed the bleeder aht. An' as 'e layed 'arf drahnded Dahn in the bleed'n' street 'E begged that bleed'n' rainstorm To bave 'is bleed'n' feet. But then the bleed'n' sun came aht ... Dried up the bleed'n' rain ....... So that bleed'n' little sparrer 'E climbed up 'is spaht again. But, Oh! .... the crewel sparrer'awk, 'E spies 'im in 'is snuggery, 'E sharpens up 'is bleed'n' claws An' rips 'im aht by thuggery ! Jist then a bleed'n' sportin' type Wot a bleed'n' gun 'E spots that bleed'n' sparrer' awk An blasts 'is bleed'n' fun. . . . . . . The moral of this story Is plain to everyone .... That them wot's up the bleed'n' spaht Don't get no bleed'n' fun. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm sure that you've all learned a lot from all that. So 'tis time for the music .... ... we're going to have a bit of a " Nick Cave Season" ...... |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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