As any fule no, when light passes through the lenses of a telescope, it slows down. And that means, you're seeing things a bit later than you would using direct vision.Only by the dinkiest fraction of a second ... but it is. So .... some researchers have been creating new forms of glass which slow down light much more drastically. And last October, they made a major breakthrough and created a lens that delayed light by hundreds of years ! And they made a telescope using this new type of glass, and when they looked through it they saw what was there in 1374 ! The street outside their Blackpool laboratory was peopled with toothless old hags dressed in raggedy black clothes, riven with black poxy pustules, whopping black warts and filthy black fingers. ( I bet you're thinking .... that's normal for present-day Blackpool is it not ?) ( Nearly..... but not quite) And interestingly, they saw Black Kites whizzing round in the sky,and Black Woodpeckers demolishing the wooden shacks all those poor devils lived in, Black Redstarts covered the rooftops, and Black Terns were skimming over the stinking, excrement-filled village pond. ( That's the "Black Pool" of course.) That's why it was called The Dark Ages. Everything that could be black was black. Including all the birds. Anyway, if the only birds that existed in the UK back then were the ones with "Black" in their names, what would be the UK birder's potential maximum list in those gloomy times ? That should be easy enough ..... you've got 4 of them already. You should be able to come up with them without Collins or owt ! And now, some Black-Themed Music ... a fine thing too .... there's many versions of it on the net, and this is the "electric" one... I know you'll want to sing along with it ... so here's the "bonus" words video .... ( ...and before anyone writes in to tell me, yes, I know there is a Science Fiction novel based on this " Slow Glass" idea. )
0 Comments
Well, would you believe it ! What an amazing newspaper headline that was !!! This female naval officer sees a handsome gravedigger and pinches his bottom ..and then, she boasts about it to her friends !! Wren Gooses Shoveler and Crows !! You couldn't make it up. ... but I did. This idea all came from a much dodgier "joke" headline from years ago .... apparently this man who was in a psychiatric ward escapes, goes into a launderette and has an amorous encounter with some of the ladies who worked there, and then he cleared off ! See if you can guess the headline in the Daily Scum ........ here's a picture to stop you seeing it too soon .... Yes, it was, of course .... NUT SCREWS WASHERS AND BOLTS ! Yes, it's not very nice, but it was " of its time" which, I think, was way back in the 60's. It makes up for its crudeness with the sheer cleverness of it. And anyway, I'm sure it was all consensual . I thought .. why not see if there's a similar thing to be done with birds instead of bits of DIY kit ........ So I made up that "bird" headline using a Wren, Goose, a Shoveler and a Crow. "Goosing" = pinching a bottom " Crowing" is boasting about something. Here's another one I cobbled together .... it is, of course, by mutual agreement ! Here's the story behind it ...... What happened was, this person who catches molluscs for a living has an amorous and previously arranged and totally consensual encounter with a red-haired person using a wooden, er, thing. All perfectly normal in today's world ! Not that I'd know. But let's see if you can work out the headline for that one shall we ....... it is, I must say, a lot more "explicit" than that first one ... but nothing more shocking that what you might read in a Jackie Collins bonkbuster, or 50 Sheds of Grey, or the well-known Welsh novels " Tinboeth" and "Tinboethach" which I read purely to increase my Welsh vocabulary. Which, I must say, they did. ... but first, another " don't see the answer yet" picture .... featuring, coincidentally, a wooden stick ... two wooden sticks, actually ...of a sort .... Here it is then ..... though I'm sure I'll live to regret it .... and once it's on't net, you can't go back to what once was. Oystercatcher Shags Redhead with Woodcock ! There we are ! Simple as that. And if you, readers all , can think of any more like that, you could send them in. Or not, as the case may be. Anyway, they're only mere strings of bird names ! I suspect that you might find a rich source of ideas in a big list of Birds of the World .... And now, music ... a lovely cover of Catatonia's " Road Rage" by two people who generally sing Welsh songs .... this is very fine ... Well ! Where do we start ? So ...here's a cracker of a "hide conversation" I overheard a few years ago.... not something I could easily forget. There were three old biddys ( biddies?) sat at the Big Window. An amazingly Big Window actually. It was paid for with a donation from a Big Widow apparently. Anyway, it went something like this ... B1] Ooh, look at those Marsh Harriers flying over ! B2] They're circling round the lake ! B1] Oh yes ... I've never seen three before! B3] They're a bit bigger than I thought. B1] Well, they don't usually get this close do they. A brief, appreciative silence as the Greylags skimmed along the surface of the lake and then settled on the water. [B2] Do they usually do that ? !! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In case you're not sure, no, they don't. There's also another unfortunate error linked with "hide conversations." So many stories like that get passed around the ill-named " birding fraternity" it crossed the mind of a well-known editor of a well-known firm which published lots of " nature books" that they could be collected and published for the lucrative " Christmas Market". So she rang up a well-known writer of " birding tales" and put it to him that money could be made by him writing a collection of them under the title " Hide Conversations." So, he set to work at once, for he had little else to do, and after much research he sent in a weighty 400 page manuscript full of diagrams and plans. Diagrams and Plans ? What ? Why ? Well, it turned out that our well-known author had mis-heard that Book Title on a somewhat crackly line, and had written a book full of " Hide Conversions" It all turned out well though .... the book sold well and many hides were converted from soggy, crumbly, dark, creaky dumps haunted by experts, top birders, orthinogilosts, birdwatchers etc into plush, expensive, brightly-lit, comfortable children's playgrounds, amusement arcades, veggie canteens, smoking shelters and duck-spotting paradises filled with laughter, dancing and merriment and nobody with a mental age › 12. But that's progress for you. I seem to have gone off on a bit of a tangent there. And now I'm off in my Renault Tangent, the Car that Never Comes Back ! Music !! Now here's a strange band ... how many bands have dad playing guitar ? Well... I think it's their dad. Weird stuff indeed .... Cola Jet Set ... " Suena el teléfono" Oddly odd. And that's just the drummer ! It is, once again, about time we had something short... so here it is. There's lots of information out there about the number of breeding pairs of birds of all sorts of different species in the UK ..... But if that sort of in-depth monitoring is going to continue, there's another vital statistic we need...... and I'll tell you what it is after this lovely song ... Well, I'm sure you've worked out what vital statistic we need to know ... How many breeding pairs of birders are there in the UK ? Because without them .... there's no future for your surveys is there ! Nope . I hope that was suitably short. No, not that one ..... As you all know, I have quite a few "Rules of Life" that I have learned the hard way over the years ... all those "Rules of Management" for example. Then there's my famous " If I can think of it, people are doing it " And here's an example of it ... Every so often, the Grumbling Stumps lot used to do a " binoculars and telescope event" in the Gannet Hide ( so called, as you will no doubt remember, because it's where the punters have their dinners), where they would set out loads of optics on tables and people would try them out through the splendidly-placed hide windows. ( Don't confuse that with " Hide Widows" which is an entirely different but highly prevalent scourge of society.) Well, I came up with a brilliant idea. When there's loads of people milling about and testing all the optics, why not pick up a £700 pair of binoculars, sit in different places for 20 mins or so mingling with the punters, take them back, get another expensive pair, mill about a bit more, then discretely drop them out of the window into the water !! Why not indeed. Then you carry on milling about, you try a few more pairs of binoculars, maybe the odd scope or two, returning them to a different counter-person each time to muddy the water, and then quietly leave. And then you come back at night with your wellies on, and fish the £700 bins out of the water and go home. Of course, I never did such a thing ... I just thought it was a dodgy loophole in the system. But here's the thing ... having thought up this naughty idea, I was amazed to find on my next visit that they had stopped "doing" it in the hide any more .... oh no ...they were now doing it in the area around the visitor centre, with at least 3 sellers in attendance and with a much better view of what the punters were up to. And no water to drop them into. Well well ! Telepathy ? Accessing the Zeitgeist ? Tarot Cards ? Coincidence ? Or was it one of those rare outbreaks of Common Sense ? I've always thought that I should be employed by the police to think up new crimes so that they could do something about them before they happened. I've got a hefty list of them already. I mean...just look around folks ! Which gormless prat thought that it would be a good idea to let any halfwit/dungbrain/sociopath have access to drones, assault rifles, machetes ( sold in our local garden centre) ( truly),huge vats of acid .. the list goes on. Pocket Chess Sets are a big killer too .... kids are always sticking the rooks up their noses and suffocating. Why rooks ? Who knows. That's why I've got a huge collection of them ... at least 70 ... just to save those kiddies ! And now, coincidentally, which, coincidentally, means all your teeth falling out at the same time, is a beautiful song about falling into some water ... plus, you'll be able it sing along with it.... which will be Terrific For your German ! Do any of you out there actually know what this " backstop" thingy is ? I've looked it up, and asked people, and read the papers, and it still seems to be a wisp of a vague idea that "ensures" that there will be no hard border when we leave the EU. Just pie in the sky really. But I do like that "ensure" bit. We could do with something like that , us birders. If we're daft enough to go 237 miles in the wispily vague hope that we might have an 8% chance of seeing a Wandering Corker 477 metres out at sea, we could do with a Backstop of some sort. Some sort of assurance that we'd get something for all our hard work. And I hereby propose that if you dip out on the Wandering Corker, you could count it as Half Of A Wandering Corker. That gives you a crumb of comfort, does it not. First, it means that if you already had Half Of A Wandering Corker from a Previous Equally Drastic Dip, you could add it to the Half Of The Wandering Corker you just got, and tick it as a Whole One Of A Wandering Corker !! And secondly, if you previously had Half of Another Different Rare Thing That You Missed, you could add the two halves up and add 1 to your list. But 1 of what, you might ask. Who cares ? You'd have One More Than You Had Before. And that's The Very Important Thing. That's what our Birding Backstop can do for you. I offer this idea to the Birding Community Free of charge. But now, here's Damien Saez and " S'en aller " He's classically trained you know. I've just thought up a way of giving a "name" to the two different half-birds you've ticked as a whole one .... but I'll need to do a bit of work with it first ... how exciting, eh ! Right ... I've sorted out how to do it....
Let's suppose your two half-birds that you didn't actually see were the aforementioned Wandering Corker and Larkin's Bumbird (!) Both terrific birds of course .... Well, here's the single bird you could add to your list ... ... the magnificently-named ... (after its two discoverers back in 1958) .... Drumcrank-Arsewinkler Bingobird BUT ...... why ? Why is the Drumcrank-Arsewinkler Bingobird right for the job ? This is them, by the way, presumably reading about their discovery. Siegfried Drumcrank is on the left, and Stefan Arsewinkler on the right. If you're going to understand this, you need to read the previous post in which I show you a fine, upstanding example of what it's all about. But don't forget..... this is such a difficult challenge, many have taken drastic measures to escape its addictive clutches ... like those up there in that boat. Here's a Helpful Harrow to guide you on your way .... «------------------------------------------------------- OK ..now you know. Let's get going then ...... here's "my" attempt at it ...... ... by the way, I'm having a fine old time trying to type this... it doesn't like it !!! G R e at Ti T 5-1 = 4 pts M E diterranean ShearwateR 20 - 1 = 19 pts Me D iterranean Shearw A ter 16-5 = 11 pts. S t o n e c h a T 7 pts Whi Te - fronted GooS e 11 - 4 = 7 pts P A r t r i D g e 4 - 3 = 1 pt R ed K i t E 5 pts T r e e c r e e p e R 9 pts TOTAL POINTS 63 !!!!!!! Woo. Wowsers .... 63 points. But .... I've used a range of easy-to-spot entries ..like the 1st and last ones .... and some less obvious but much higher-scoring ones like the WFG and the Med Shear ..which was so brilliant, I did it twice. Hah !! So you can no doubt improve considerably on some of those ... the Red Kite one is a right duffer for a start. And Partridge and Gt Tit ... pah! Rubbish !!! So .... I hope you too had a go at it. But if not ...you could improve on mine. Here's a bit of moody music ... you don't see that many accordion players wearing black vests .... radical or what ? Here's a top pencil-and-paper game for all the family ...well, as long as they all know loads of bird names, both common and obscure .... no prob there then. Here's a nice easy one to start with .... our "starter" bird is the lowly WREN ...we write it down the left side, then upside-downified on the right side.... like this ... and then we try to fit another bird inside ... I've rather cleverly done WigeoN. Clever me ! And I get 4 points ..because I get a point for each letter I put inside. W i g e o N R E E R N W .... now the next line .... I'm a bit stuck, so I'm going to do a strange but crafty thing .. so I get 7 points for the inside letters, but I lose a point for that g which is outside ..... 6 points then. We're learning the rules as we go along. Actually, that's all the rules. Oh, I'm doing UK birds with this one........ W i g e o N 4 points G R e a t S n i p E 7-1 = 6 points E R N W So ... what about the rest ? Have a think, and try doing them yourself...... and while you do that, here's a nice picture so you won't see what I did ....... Here's my final effort .... W i g e o N 4 points G R e a t S n i p E 6 points T r E e c r e e p e R 5 points S N o w y O W l 2 points Total 17 points !! So .... see if you can do better .... I'm sure you can. In fact, I know you can, 'cos I have. And if I can, so can you. And now one for you to try all by yourselves ... this time with REDSTART as your "starter bird" .... and by the way, there is one more rule ... you're not allowed to use the starter bird .... obviously, because then you could always use it for the top one. And next time, I'll show you what I did with it . And then you can laugh at my feeble effort compared to your brilliant one. Mind you, it's a tricky task ... no place for a Rabbit Heart .... Oh, we all like spotty birds, do we not ? But why ? It's a big question, and I've not got the answer to it. But here's another spot-related question ...... Do all Song Thrushes have the same number of spots ? Or for that matter, does each "spotty" species have their own special number of spots ? Well, I've found a bit of research about it .... and one bloke has found out an odd thing. He's found that a species of Mud-Pecker always has exactly 370 spots ! And not only that ... 370 is a very special number. It is the sum of the cubes of its digits. 370 .... 3³ + 7³ + 0³ = 27 + 343 + 0 = 370 .... crumbs ! And on top of that, there's another Mud-Pecker that has exactly 153 spots. .... and you'll never guess .... that's also the sum of the cubes of its digits.... 153 ..... 1³ + 5³ + 3³ = 1 + 125 + 27 = 153 double crumbs ! .... and ,as you all know, there are three species of Mud-Pecker, but the third one hasn't been seen for many years, and the few photographs and drawings of it don't reveal the exact number of spots it has ... how tantalizing. But they do show enough to tell us it's well over 350. So ....assuming it obeys the same rule as the other two, how many spots should it have ? You might be mildly surprised when you find it. ..This "musical" selection shows my age somewhat ! What would the 10 commandments of birding be ? Do we want/need any ? And if so, who's going to write them ? Do we need ten of them ? Vital issues ! Actually, I've no idea. Obviously the ones in the bible won't be any use, except in the vaguest sense. Committing adultery, for example, is usually enormously time-consuming and probably expensive, I wouldn't know, and that " not envying thy neighbour's wife" is a bit odd ...why would that god person design us so that we have all those sort of impulses and then not let us even think about them, let alone "do" them ... it seems mighty odd to me. And it's not really relevant to birding, except in the slangy sense. Then there's " Thou shalt not kill" .... that's not very well defined is it .... no treading on worms then, even if by accident. No defending yourself either ... as a guide, it's pretty useless really. Plus, you'd have to drive v. slowly to your next rarity in case you squodged a rabbit..... and not only that, after any car journey in decent weather your radiator will be plastered with squidged insects etc. What's that if not "killing" ? And most of the other ones aren't going to be of much help either. But ...assuming that some "commandments" would be a good idea for us birders, what sort of commandments would you want ? We don't want any "inventing" of sightings, or lying about our "lists", or misdirecting our rivals ( surely not !) or nicking telescopes, or slagging off those who aren't quite as clued-up as us, or buying exotic birds at cage-bird fairs and claiming them as genuine vagrants, no tampering with road signs, no painting over certain letters of towns like Scunthorpe to distract the driver, or sending birders you don't like up "disappearing" trees .... there's all sorts of things going on that we don't like.... but how could these be "commandmentised" into a useful set of guidelines .... ? I'll leave you to ponder over that lot then .... ... and as usual, all ideas would be welcome at [email protected] ..and once we've got those sorted, everything will go well ... "Tout va bien" |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
|