So ...here's the thing .... I think us birders should be entitled to some sort of "adjustment" to our life lists ..... based on our unfortunate/fortunate situations. It would be a points-based adjustment .... .. and I've got plenty of points. [1] I spent my teenage years in Widnes ...effectively a bird-free zone. [20 pts] [2] I got married at when I was 19. Don't do it! I must have been mad. [30 pts] [3] I got twins when I was 32 .... cripes. [230 pts] [4] And we were only expecting just the one. That's mega-points. [70 pts] [5] I didn't have a car till I was 32 either. [110 pts] [6] Until fairly recently I had a demanding and time-swallowing job. [180 pts] That's the main things .. a grand total of 640 points. Ouch ! Ok ... so 640 points must somehow be converted into ticks. That way, I get compensated for all those times when I lived in bird-free zones, for the many important birds I could have twitched had I had a car, for the sheer disruption perpetrated by the offsprings at every stage of their lives, including being sick in cars, screaming loudly for hours on end, swallowing up oceans of money because of school uniforms, ferrying them to their respective universities at opposite end of the country, and then back again, repeat said ferrying 40 times, that's a huge chunk of my life gone up in smoke, not to mention their uncanny capacity for getting injured on the first day of any holiday thus buggering up hours of potential birding time, plus The Significant Otter's uncanny knack of picking bird-free route choices, and then, the ever-creeping and slowly-slithery downhill encroachment of age-related knackered-ness and the ensuing can't-be-arsedness and the approaching decline and death. But, on the plus side ... So ... I reckon that 640 points ought to get me a notional 640/20 = 32 ticks. That sounds about right ... and it equates to roughly ½ an extra tick per child-year. That's bloody reasonable actually. All considered. I'll settle for that. Phew ! I feel a lot better now. Mind you, I have wittered about all that quite a bit on here before . 369-write-your-own-celebrity-birding-book.html But this time I've done something about it. The only problem is ... what would those 32 ticks actually be ? I could make some up. Westermann's Prongtail Drab-breasted Oaktapper Amblesnipe Axe-billed Snapper Variegated Eelsnatcher ... there's plenty more where they came from ... the toughest ones to invent are birds which consist of just one word ... and here's the "singalong version ... go on ... sehr schön ! prima !
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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