Here's the scenario ... some eccentric offers you £1000 to take him (eccentrics are mostly hims) to a Treecreeper ... he's desperate to see one, he's got a bet on with one of his mates that he can spot a Treecreeper today ... not tomorrow, not the next day.... today. As it happens, you're in desperate need of exactly £1000 .... what a coincidence. So you say ..OK, I'll do my best. Now think about this ... you haven't got long. The days are drawing in. The nights are getting longer too. Treecreepers spend half of their time out of sight round the other side of the tree, so that's a right pain for a start.They're tiny, cryptically coloured, and fairly silent,they don't like being looked at and often they're about 70' up and a right pain in the neck in all senses of the phrase ...... lots to worry about. So ..what would be your technique ... your strategy ... your plan... your modus operandi.... your nifty nack, your trusty trick,your cunning ruse, your top scheme to deliver the goods ? You've only got a few short hours ... and you've got to get today's Daily Star to prove you spotted it today, and you've got to leave a note for t'significant other,if any, and you've got to make some sandwiches and a flask, and put in some cackets of prisps ... so much to do ! Cripes !! Anyhow, here's my list of possible strategies ... • You take him for a stroll in a Treecreeper hotspot. Just wandering around. • You go to the same place, but sit down on your folding chairs and wait and watch. • You could also try lying down on your nifty rugs and look up.They're often "up." • Whichever of those you do, you might especially watch out for the most conspicuous thing they do... when they get to the top, they sort of swoop flutteringly down to the base of the next tree and start again ... a dreary life. But it's the only life they've got. Are Treecreepers free from the chains of the barkway ? • Even niftier... seeing as there's two of you, why don't you sit-or-lie-down one on each side of the trees, so you'll stop the little beggars hiding round the back. • Mirrors can do the same job, but they're heavy and hefty. • Another important thing ... you must know the noises they make. Bleedin' vital. • You could try using my "vismigophone" I showed you a few posts ago.. actually, I'll show you it again ... I'm quite proud of it. Here it is in full "treecreepering" mode.... that's you dangling form underneath it in your super-comfy chair. • You could go to some houses that back onto or are actually in Top Treecreepery Woods, and ask them if they get Treecreepers in their garden. These houses do exist ... I know of quite a few of them of them personally. Then you tell them you're doing a v. v. v. IMPORTANT TREECREEPER SURVEY and could we sit in your garden please and spot one. All in the interests of SCIENCE. And you do it. • Why stay on the deck ? What about climbing a tree, and sit up in the canopy with a huge view of all the activity up there. After all, looking up from below is hard work. And a bit eye-boggling too ... • Or you could go a stage further ... what about going up a tall thing... like a block of flats or similar .. that just happens to overlook a Good Treecreepery Place and scope stuff from there. Why not indeed. Well ... maybe you know some more .... things that worked for you. In this context, longer-term strategies like planting your own wood or flying to somewhere where you have to swat Treecreepers out of your way to get to the Post Office, or buying one on the internet and releasing it, or spending weeks preparing a special tree in your top TCSpSp .. Treecreeper Spotting Spot .... by filling all the chinks in the bark with peanut butter and squashed flies and dead beetles so that said TCs will spend all their days on that tree and no other ... they're no good. Nope. Long-term ... do-able. Short-term ... crap. But what about music ... what on earth will go with that ? Aha .. here's a lovely, intimate cover of U2's " I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" .... plus " Stand By Me" ... although, as I mentioned above, round the other side might be a better strategy.
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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