For all young and/or inexperienced mothers, this is the page that sends an icy chill down their spines ! That bloke up there ... he's just seen it for the first time. An hour ago. (!) It's "The Pug Page" ! The Deadly Dastardly Diabolical Diagram Plate 10 in "Skinner" ... the mother's bible. [ If you're another sort of mother, move swiftly on, or ask anothermother ] The further down the page you go, the worse they get. Especially when you realise that whole swathes of them are different versions of the same one ! Ouch ! But ... moving on to the Realm Of Birding, of which we are all, like it or not, a humble (or less humble) part, we of course have our own "Problem Plates" .... pages crammed with pictures of birds that all look more or less the same. Partly because some of them ARE the same. But you can hardly tell. Here's a few For Yew to view Yew might go "phew" You might say "Cew !" Oh yes, it's Trew Yew're in the Stew Yew've really trewly not a Clew ! But they're not the only ones. OK ...warblers are small .... but at least you can get reasonably close to them. But those waders .... the various Stints for instance ... they're pretty tiny ... but usually they're bloody miles away .... why, I've no idea. What are they up to out there ? Have you ever held a Dunlin in your hand ? Well I have, many times,and it's a real eye-opener when you see how tiny they are. And they're part of a series of " confusion species." Many of which as it happens, are also both dinky and distant .... a dodgy combination indeed. [ Safety message ... don't take Dunlins out of nets with your eyes shut.] [ No "eye-opening" should be needed.] Plus ... a big big problem with all those Paradoxical Puzzling Plates is that they're in easily-available bird books that any old fool can buy at reasonable prices in the shops. Or, I suspect. online. Now what could go terribly wrong there ? I wonder. Er ..... Surely complete beginners couldn't misidentify some of those birds and put them on Witter or Instacrap or Whatshite or Pootube or Smugchat and then umpteen twitchers/twerps/robinstrokers ...and maybe even some actual birders .... might spend hours and hours and gallons and gallons and the like going to see "it". No ..no no no ! And a thousand times no ! But....... looking at it realistically .... YES. And here's my solution to all this I would put all the "serious stuff" about bird identification in a separate book which you could only get if you passed several stiff tests, both theoretical and practical ... just like you do if you are learning to drive or getting your "Mountain Leadership" qualification .... that sort of thing. Do it now !! Before any more non-existent Melodious Warblers are ticked . There is only one snag ... I have a horrible feeling that I would fail it !! Or ... you would have to renew "it" when you were 70 or whatever. Oh dear oh dear. But ... on the plus side ...... I can't actually think of anything on the plus side. Hey .. it's snowing. And it's getting snowier. So ...the music has to be ... "Incendios de Nieve" ... LOL .
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
|