No doubt a lot of you lot think that UK year-listing is the biggest challenge to be had ... but you've no idea. Now here's a challenge that's broken hearts and minds, ruined reputations and even now, for those looking back to those days, it's a warning of what can happen when what seems a simple task unravels into a nightmare. Oh yes. It was a simple idea really ... you get the current edition of The Observers Book of Birds ... back when I first got interested that's about all there was ... and you try to see all the birds in it in a Calendar year. Simple ? No ... because you've got to see them in book order ... in my case, I started with Magpie and Jay on pages 18 and 19, the first described species after a sloppy and drippy Preface by S Vere Benson of " The Bird Lovers' League" ( yuck) and a foreword by the equally useless Frances Countess of Warwick. Who she ? That's fine then ... Magpie, Jay .... simps. I trundled on ticking stuff like Crossbill, Brambling, Siskin, all fine, until I got to page 44 and 45 .. ... Golden Oriole followed by Waxwing. Do-able (?), er, possibly (???) but inconveniently, but a portent of the difficulties ahead. A few pages later you've got to get Woodlark before a Shore Lark, and then on p.53 the Blue-Headed Wagtail pops up. What ? That's a bit random. Still, do-able ... oh, and by the way, you've got to remember that this was before the internet, before pagers ... almost before speech was widespread in the UK. Even by this stage many competitors had crashed and burned, having missed out somewhere along the line. .... you continually come across situations where you have to get bird A before bird B but all the A's have flown off back to Africa or gone out to sea or whatever. Even if you see hundreds of B's they won't count. Your only hope is a late -to-leave A ... and how are you going to find out about it if it's not rare ? You're really up the junction then. But let's assume you managed it that far,then on page 61 you're hit with Firecrest, then a bit later you get Wood warbler..and you're into the rest of the warblers. But then pages 83/84 land you with Fieldfare + Redwing. We're not even half-way through yet. I haven't even mentioned stuff like Dartford Warbler etc .... you've got your winter swans to come, Stone Curlew, tricky phalaropes, all before Dotterel, that's going to be tricky, Roseate bloody Tern, Black Tern summer grebes , Turtle dove, Quail ... and finally, a nice trip up to Scotland for Ptarmigan and Caper. Shit ! Nobody ... nobody at all managed it.. as far as I know. In fact most people had bombed out of it by the end of May. I reckon that even in these times of the smartphone it would be really tough ... but it's always lingered up there in the backs of people's minds as a sort of " North Face of Everest" challenge for top birders. There's even been efforts to start at some other point in the year to make the logistics better... abandoning the " Calendar Year" proviso altogether. I also seem to remember that some who originally tried it carried on to see how long it would actually take them if there was no time limit ... you could just pick them up in your normal birding and see how long it took that way. I've never heard any more about it though. I wonder why ..... What a surprise .. today's music is the magnificent "Up the Junction" ... a classic of UK Pop ..... I never thought it would happen With me and the girl from Clapham Out on the windy common That night I ain't forgotten When she dealt out the rations With some or other passions I said "you are a lady" "Perhaps" she said. "I may be" We moved in to a basement With thoughts of our engagement We stayed in by the telly Although the room was smelly We spent our time just kissing The Railway Arms we're missing But love had got us hooked up And all our time it took up I got a job with Stanley He said I'd come in handy And started me on Monday So I had a bath on Sunday I worked eleven hours And bought the girl some flowers She said she'd seen a doctor And nothing now could stop her I worked all through the winter The weather brass and bitter I put away a tenner Each week to make her better And when the time was ready We had to sell the telly Late evenings by the fire With little kicks inside her This morning at four fifty I took her rather nifty Down to an incubator Where thirty minutes later She gave birth to a daughter Within a year a walker She looked just like her mother If there could be another And now she's two years older Her mother's with a soldier She left me when my drinking Became a proper stinging The devil came and took me From bar to street to bookie No more nights by the telly No more nights nappies smelling Alone here in the kitchen I feel there's something missing I'd beg for some forgiveness But begging's not my business And she won't write a letter Although I always tell her And so it's my assumption I'm really up the junction ... and here's another challenge for you .... Here's the "answer" to a question I'm going to ask in the future ... how mysterious !!
... and the answer is "they're all birds I didn't go for, and have regretted it ever since." Hey, you could do the "mystery" in reverse, by trying to guess what those 3 birds were ! Only 3 !!, you're thinking ...well, there's prob one or two more, but I've blotted them out of what I think of as my mind. And/or ... you could send me your " didn't-go-to-see-it-damn-and-blast" list and I'll do a thing about it...... my email is [email protected]
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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