Having written extensively about getting "The Three Things" I thought I'd better actually sort it out. So ...I went to a likely spot ..... and things looked promising .... about 30 House Martins, and 2 Swifts. But where were the blessed Swallows ("malditas golondrinas" if you've been paying attention). Where indeed. As you know, well, you should do, I've been going on about it quite a bit, swallows are a bit thin on the ground again, like wot they woz last year, so the task of getting Hm + Swi + Swa all in the same binocular view looked a bit remote. But after about 10 mins a measly single swallow turned up ...so, of course, I latched on to it and dogged its every tiny twist and turn, waiting for the other two sp. to loom into the field of view (FOV) as more and more of those pesky minutes dragged along without The Essential Three coinciding in the FOV ... but, you'll never guess .... eventually ,at precisely 12:32 BST, I got them !! Wo !! And you can do that for any three species ! Oh yes. That's a lifetime of birding in itself. Linnet, Herring Gull and Green Woodpecker ... that's a cracker. And you ... yes, you ... could be the first to do it. Here's another "good" "idea" for you... Set yourself unusual, interesting, not too drastic goals .... and then do them ! That's the simple pleasure that comes from a self-imposed trivial task ( SITT) Here's another fine example...... I have a "clothes-line" tick list. And yesterday ( it was a very productive day, obviously) I got a CLT !! ( Wake up ... a " clothes-line-tick")(CLT) Oho ... a female Bullfinch landed on it .... a first ! Start yours today ! I've also written extensively about "hide ticks" .... it all came about because of the Flat Controller having a go at what he likes to think of as his "minions" about birding from hides ... he tried to stop it .. telling us it was not "proper" birding. Needless to say we all made sure it backfired on him utterly and totally. Hah ! ( reminder ... find the link to those posts about it ) ( I haven't done it yet... too busy "clotheslining" ) Then you could try separate lists for each window of the house, birds seen through various shop windows, birds seen from Sainsbury's ... there's plenty of it. Then there's birds ,often unidentifiable actually, on plates, mugs, postcards, paintings, in glass cases, you name it, they'll be there. Simple things to do when there's no Ibis/Ibi/Ibises to go and chase after. And, in contrast to all that twitching stuff, most of the time nobody else will be there ...... And exactly 15 years ago today I got a fine "hide tick" from the "Left Hide" at Cley, the "No Smoking" one.... a fine male Green-Winged Teal.
I wasn't twitching.... I just happened to be there.. but it was part of my tricky quest to "get" the full set of UK birds with four "e's" in their name. But just how tricky is it ? How many of them are there ? So .... plenty of things to do without ruining the planet .... well, sort of. [ Just so you know .... Long-Tailed Duck is on my Sainsbury's Window List .... hah !] But now ... here's the " Answer" to a question I posed way way into the future ..
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
|