Two posts ago, I wondered how many individual birds there were in the world. A big, deep and probably unknowable thing. One source ( Source C ) suggested we could start by knowing how many individual birds any one person in the world sees in a day. He estimated it to be 100 or so. I don't quite see how that would help, to be honest, but yesterday I tried it for myself. Anything to stave off the infinitely mysterious universe, eh ! Well,by 0840 and I'd seen 287 already .... just by walking along my local waterway Seriously. No kidding. I couldn't carry on like that ! My brain would probably melt down into a little grey pellet of mush. I might have to buy a new pencil. Source C seems to be underestimating things considerably with his/her "100 per day . I didn't "do" much else until mid-afternoon, when I went to the seaside ... if you could call it that. A couple of hours there got me up to 984. That's counting the few extra birds I spotted on the way back. I didn't venture out again until darkness was descending, in the hope of a couple of owls, but they were not to to be. So 984 it is. BUT ..... chance played a big part. For example ..had we turned up at the seaside at a different time, the tide would have been right in, and I wouldn't have "got" that huge 534-strong mixed gull flock, nor the 87 feral pigeons on the salt-marshy bit. Just chance . Ok .... but ..how do I convert that 984 figure into some idea of the number of individual birds in the world ? I've no idea. Source C implies that you just multiply it by the number of people in the world. But that can't be right ! That gull flock would have been seen by hundreds of people. And those swifts and hirundines over my house will have been seen by loads of local people, even if they might not have known which was which. And so will the 7 juv L-T-Tits that were on the feeders first thing. So what do I multiply 984 by to get the number of individual birds in the world ? What was that number that was the key to life, the universe and everything ? 49 I think. 49 x 984 = 50 x 984 - 984 = 98400/2 - 1000 + 16 = 48200 + 16 = 48216 individual birds in the entire world. But 48216 individual birds in the world seems a bit small. Let's stick a few zeros onto the end of it. It's what "scientists" do ...... 4,821,600,000 How many billions that is depends on where you live. The old UK meaning of a billion was a million million, or one followed by twelve noughts (1,000,000,000,000). The USA meaning of a billion is a thousand million, or one followed by nine noughts (1,000,000,000). Increasingly in this country we are using the USA meaning of a billion for these big numbers,... So assuming they're all using US billions these days ..... ..... that's just over 4.8 billions ! Coo ! Crumbs ! Briwsion ! Gott in Himmel ! But to be honest, I still can't see how you can work it out properly from a count like that.... or even hundreds of counts like that. It is probably something we'll never know ... and as I said in the first thing I wrote about it, that's fine by me. These " magic numbers" ... they're all just a shot in the dark ....
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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