My highlight yesterday was a Goldcrest in the garden ... really close up in the hedge ... and after a while it flew into the Eucalyptus ... yet another "Eucalyptus Tick !" I think it was maybe the 3rd ever in the garden .... crumbs. But ...... over that few minutes, I had been several "versions" of birding, looking at Coal tits and House Sparrows, watching the Starlings whirling around ..... being, basically, well down the scale. Then the Goldcrest turned up and I felt I was going up the rankings a bit. Once it had gone, I started lamenting the fact that it hadn't been a Firecrest ...which is a mean and cheap shot ... but does sort of haul me up a rung or two more on the "birding spectrum". And later that day I went Common Gull Counting .... that's boosts me a bit up the ranks ..... that, I think, might make me an ornithologist (!) ... hmmm . ...and that afternoon I got talking to another passing birder about that Long-tailed Duck I had "sort-of-twitched" a few days ago, that puts me even further up. Some time ago I wrote a daft poem about the whole hierarchy ... ... and here it is .... in order of uselessness .. I want to die in the way a Robin-stroker ought to whilst making some repairs to my home-made Blue Tit box .. and falling off the ladder that I've propped against the lean-to A worthy way, I think, to pop your clogs. I hope to have a dude's death, it's completely up my street, by falling off a cliff whilst Puffin- spotting. As I bounce from rock to boulder, I'll think, how very sweet, that I'll be feeding all those sea-birds whilst I'm rotting ! All us top-rank twitchers, we'd like to kick the bucket tearing down the motorway, at 80 ,90, faster, So, with my mates all in the back, hoping we will tick it I'll crash the car into a bridge,so of our fate I'll be the master ! Maybe I should meet my end the way us birders should Doing something "conservationist" and consequently "good" so I'll make a papier-maché box and then get buried in it then it and I will slowly rot, which will maybe "Save the Planet." [ A worthy cause, you must admit I'd love to contribute to it But maybe not that drastically I might just give "them" 50p ] As an avid birdwatcher I'd really love to die lying in a field whilst logging migrants flying by, and then from out of nowhere, a tractor would squash me flat and in 10 seconds I'd expire, and I hope that would be that.. Now bird-watchers, well, they all have their very special way of taking leave of this sorry world .... on a soggy survey day they'll get swallow-ed up in squelching mud, and step off this mortal coil, and if you're lucky, you will too, which helps fertilise the soil. The Ornithologist has ways most logical, off his perch to fall, these days they're hardly relevant, they ain't no use at all to birders, twitchers, robin-strokers, all the others too... one "breathed his last" last week, inhaling fumes from gannet poo ! ( that's a "scientific" way to go for your normal ornithologist, it was probably at the top of his "bio-logical" ways to perish list ! ) As a lifelong Scientist I feel that I should croak in some way that's appropriate, and fitting, and bespoke and logical and numerical, not as do "other" folk, so I think I'll eat my slide rule, and consequently, choke. ( there's another scientific way.... eating lots of graphs and charts, so I'd expire 3 hours later from my exponential farts !) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AND NOW ..here's a nifty guide to the different sorts of us ...... As you will have noticed, there can be many other " types" of birders ..... which, in my opinion , is a good thing .... .... and now, the music ..... enjoy !!
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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