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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A while ago I showed you some special birding terms for all of us experts to use .... they're on the business end of this link ... 4-gwibbers-aztecstoe-rags-etc.html Now here's some more ..... KIKI ... someone who encroaches on your patch .... it's from Kiki in Hector's House... she's always looking over the wall into his garden and he doesn't like it. She uses a ladder ! That's a liberty that is. Laughably, she's a weather forecaster ! MINTY ... someone who likes big, gaudy birds, and doesn't think much of warblers etc. It comes, I believe, from Robert Smith's song "Like Cockatoos" because Robert = Trebor backwards ..Trebor Mints. Obvious really. SLOB .... a twitcher/globe-trotter ... anyone who Sees Lots Of Birds. MOZZER .. a term of respect for a birder who is an all-round naturalist and knows about flowers, moths etc. Named after top Fylde birder Morris Jones .... Mozzer is a northern version of Morris. PIMP ... a sort of mini-Kiki ... they Peek Into My Patch. KIRBY ... a really good bird ... a "gripper" ( Kirby Grips ... if you remember them. ) KERBY ... a birder who does most of their birding from a parked car ... at the kerb. Easily confused with the similar-sounding Kirby. NELSON .. a birder who can't really see anything through their scope but pretends they can. Admiral Nelson famously had one useless eye. TELLY .. from Telly Savalas. A birder who closes the other eye when using a scope ... Mr. Savalas had an eye-patch. Well, now you know. By using these terms regularly you will be admired by all !!! Here's an episode of Hector's house .... Kiki appears at 2:48 ! Cheeky bugger. ..and Kirby Grips are a brand of Hair Grips ... my mum used them... there's also a band called The Kirby Grips but they're crap. ... and here's Shakira Seeing Lots Of Birds ....good ID practice here for you .... Woooo ! I was just opening the front door after walking "the dog" and looked up .. of course ... and there up in't sky was my first Swift of the year. Ace. Also in the field of view were 2 House Martins. One of my "indicators" of things getting going, springwise, is this ... " Spring properly begins when you get Swallow, House Martin and Swift in the same binocular field of view." So obviously I haven't managed that yet .... I could have if I'd motored to the local hotspots for " that sort of thing" but I haven't. I'm a patient old Hector. But now for the " another birding challenge" I mentioned in the title... You're going to have to think about this ...... What's the greatest number of species you've had in your binocular field of view at the same time? It's a tricky one. I'm thinking wader+ gull flocks, lakes packed with ducks + gulls, winter fields full of thrushes, finches , ornamental duck ponds etc. A lot also depends on your bins ... I've got some ancient Swift Audubons which weigh about 8 tons BUT have a huge field of view. They're really 3D as well... when you bin a nearby tree you feel as if the branches are all around you. On the other end of the scale, I've got a dinky pair of "pocket bins" ... Viking Travellers they are (sounds like a village footy team) 8x21 which are very handy to cart around in your pocket but have a tiny field of view. Plus you can leave them in the car and it doesn't matter if they get nicked. This is a really do-able challenge .... you don't need any rarities, you don't have to drive around the country for miles .... you can have a go at it anywhere. I'll be interested to hear of any results, good or not so good. I'll be showing you a deceptively easy-looking challenge shortly ... you'll need your ancient copy of " The Observer's Book of Birds" for it though. Be ready. I bet you're thinking ... how hard could that be ?" You'll see. Oh yes. Well .. it's music time ... something rather special and sophisticated today ... a tiny bit of "Jazz Club" .....probably the funniest thing you'll see/hear all day.... The Significant Otter doesn't like me bringing dead birds home... but she had to admire this one ... That's Otters for you. She actually found a dead Otter once. Which is a bit of a coincidence. But ... There's a lot to be learned from dead birds. For a start, some of them have rings on. And you can put into practice all that stuff you have, or haven't, learned about feather tracts. Plus ... dead things tend not to fly off. I drew that one from underneath as well ... I've no idea why... Why I just drew the head and the leg I don't know either ... the scaly legs are lovely to draw though ... you can see the little patches of blood ... I've put this one on here somewhere before.... I've got quite a few of that sort of thing but I can't find them. The Significant Otter is a keen thrower-out of things. Hmmmmm. I wonder .... If/when I do find more, I'll put them on here .... Maybe you should give it a go. And on a topical note, here's Welsh band Threatmantics with "Wedi Marw" .. a slice of everyday Welsh life complete with lots of dead things .... ..and here's another jolly bit of "wedi marw" .... from She's Got Spies .... " Dwi wedi marw" ... I'm dead! I've just remembered ... I've drawn various skulls ....what do you reckon that was ... and, er, snails ... ... flowers aren't dead, but they don't run/fly away either.
Yesterday, on't radio, there was the the latest episode of a rather odd series called " Glan Don" ... about a strange, ghost-infested Welsh coastal village. Having had a few ghostly experiences myself, I'm always keen to frighten myself shitless yet again. I only listen to it because there are occasional bits of Welsh ( darnau achlysurol o Gymraeg). Just after someone had mentioned "dannedd rocks" ( teeth rocks) ( you can guess what they're like) there was a night scene .... and in the background .... wait for it ... there was a Nightingale singing. ER ..... not very likely I would think. No. On the cold, windswept Welsh coast. Nah ! I think "they" do it deliberately to get "us" going. They show you a Barn Owl, then you hear a hooting noise. Someone in a soap walks down Shit Street, Liverpool 8 and we hear a Dartford Warbler chuntering in the background. You're watching a detective story, and everywhere they go a Willow Warbler follows them around ... the same bloody Willow Warbler at that. What fun ! Simple amusements !! It's got to be them having a laugh, surely. I hope so anyhow. Plus, I believe there are people who keep a TV bird list ...it's probably fantastic fun to do ... but they have a bit of a dilemma with silly stuff like that going on. If you are watching Corry and you hear an Olivaceous Warbler singing outside the pub, do you tick it or not ? And what about those Jungle scenes in Tarzan films ... how do they ID all those noises?? Have they got huge shelves full of Cds of all the bird utterances in the World ? I know not. But I hope so .. it would certainly keep them out of mischief learning that lot. Well, , I hope you'll be looking out for more of these anomalies .... and in the meantime, here's a very sad and beautiful song ... Racing in the Streets.... "Some guys they just give up living And start dying little by little, piece by piece Some guys come home from work and wash up And go racin' in the street" Us lot go "birdin' in the street " instead ... it sounds pretty tough, eh !! And we don't do the soppy washing up first either ... no way ! Huh ! I got a sixty-nine Chevy with a three-ninety-six
Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor She's waiting tonight down in the parking lot Outside the Seven-Eleven store Me and my partner Sonny built her straight out of scratch And he rides with me from town to town We only run for the money, got no strings attached We shut 'em up and then we shut 'em down Tonight, tonight the strip's just right I want to blow 'em off in my first heat Summer's here and the time is right For racin' in the street We take all the action we can meet And we cover all the northeast state When the strip shuts down we run 'em in the street From the fire roads to the interstate Some guys they just give up living And start dying little by little, piece by piece Some guys come home from work and wash up And go racin' in the street Tonight, tonight the strip's just right I want to blow 'em all out of their seats Calling out around the world, we're going racin' in the street I met her on the strip three years ago In a Camaro with this dude from L.A. I blew that Camaro off my back And drove that little girl away But now there's wrinkles around my baby's eyes And she cries herself to sleep at night When I come home the house is dark She sighs, "baby did you make it all right" She sits on the porch of her daddy's house But all her pretty dreams are torn She stares off alone into the night With the eyes of one who hates for just being born For all the shut down strangers and hot rod angels Rumbling through this promised land Tonight my baby and me, we're gonna ride to the sea And wash these sins off our hands Tonight, tonight the highway's bright Out of our way, mister, you best keep 'Cause summer's here and the time is right For racin' in the street Questions which must be asked ... [1] Why do they have to do the washing up first ? [2] If he blows them off in his first heat ... what's he going to do for the rest of the evening ? [3] Exactly how "little" was that girl ? Laws vary from state to state. [4] If she's "alone in the night" how does he know that she's "staring" ? [5] What's he going to do about it if that "mister" doesn't keep out of his way? Eh ? Oh yes, I can break into a run when I want to ..just about. And here's a "for instance" .... it all took place in this windswept, freezing stone hide by the sub-zero ,ultracold , steely sea. Did I mention it was cold ? And windswept ? Not only that ...there was nowt worth watching either, through the dinky at-the-wrong-height slits in the wall that they laughingly called " viewing windows." I think there's some idiot somewhere in an office on £78000 a year designing bird hides and getting everything wrong. The windows are always at the wrong height, they keep banging you on the head when the catches don't work, and/or they slam shut and break your fingers,the seats are uncomfortable, noisy and cold, the doors squeak, rattle and slam, and they're a bugger to open and/or close,the floorboards creak and are covered in a slippery skim of lichen, algae or chewing gum and abandoned food. Sometimes the occupants are covered in a slippery skim of ... Just saying. Then a person ( ad male) came in ...and after a bit he said " by the way, you know that tree on the corner as you come along the path ...well, there's a Melodious Warbler in it, showing quite well." "Oh yes " I replied nonchalantly. One doesn't want to look too keen on these occasions. You don't want to seem to desperate. You want to exude an atmosphere of having seen hundreds of them, all over the W. Pal, to have found at least 6 of your own and to have written several monographs on their unusual roosting habits. I think my laconic reply set the right tone. I continued scanning the sea. There was plenty of it. Vastnesses. Oodles. After what I considered to be a reasonable time, I look at my watch. "Ooh, I said ... I've got be off now." Slowly, I stood up, ambled at a snail's pace to the door, and left the building. I don't think snails actually pace, by the way. I walked slowly around the corner until I was out of sight and hearing .... and.. ... I started running like hell !!!! .. arrived at said tree. What a lovely, lovely tree ! .. most gorgeous of trees ! .. for it contained a ( the) Melodious Warbler. Woo. Crumbs. Wizard ! Jings! I have run on other occasions. No doubt we'll see. For now, a spot of music ..... this is an excellent cover of Neil Young's " For the turnstiles" .... I don't do surveys any more... not proper ones anyway. When I did, I always seemed to get sent to the remotest, crappiest, muddiest , wettest and most utterly useless corners in the area. But occasionally interesting things happen. On one survey area, my "bit" was a long, long boring "traverse" through almost uninhabited farmland ..and almost devoid of any birds to actually count. I didn't even "get" a Tree Sparrow. But something happened.... So ... I got there at the freezing crack of dawn, and set off with my little notebook etc. You could scarcely have found a straighter, more boring road in the entire country. Not a house in sight, zilch. Then , way way way in the distance, a person was approaching.Just a white speck in the distance. Naturally, I didn't bin them .... that wouldn't be good. Not polite. And if I antagonised this distant person, there were big deep soggy ditches for this person to roll me into after they had clouted me with the lead piping. They'd probably nick my bins and scope as well. Not that it matters if you're dead in a ditch. This was back in the days when I could actually carry my scope. So .... I shuffled on, ticking the odd bird ... and next time I looked, it was a she. She was still a long way off, but seemed not to be wearing very much. Long black hair. Young. Bare legs. This was all very odd.... it was absolutely perishing cold, and where the hell was she going ... there wasn't a house for miles. Eventually she reached me..... she was maybe 18-ish .... she had bare feet (!) and all she was wearing .. and I mean all ... was a thin white short-sleeved T-shirt. Readers, I walked sharply past her and never looked back !! Cripes. She said nowt. I said nowt. When I told The Significant Otter about this ( I thought I'd better in case the police turned up at the front door) she asked me how I knew that the T-shirt was all she was wearing. My reply was ... "how do you think ?" Nuff said. I can only assume that some "all-night party" was involved .... I don't know. When I got back to the car, I drove back along the survey route and carried on, for an extra mile or so ... no houses that she might have come from, no nothing. Then I turned round and drove back ... no sign of her, no houses for her to go to. How strange. She had walked at least 2 miles on a rough, stony farm road in bare feet and in bitter cold. During my years of birding, that's probably the oddest ( and dodgiest) thing that's happened. Dead bodies, copulating couples, getting chased by farmers, cattle, dogs, nearly dying of cold, getting chucked off bird reserves ( well, one, once), getting lost, going to the wrong hospital, twice, pulling people off electric fences, getting into arguments about Siskins, .... etc .... etc.... All I've got to do now is think of some appropriate music ... but I can't .. so I'll just pick something very odd ... and a trifle unsettling... Trôns dy dad .. "your dad's underpants".... You'll be fascinated to know that's there's actually a Welsh novel called "Trôns" ..and I've read it !! Who could resist !!!!! Actually, the Welsh seem to be a bit obsessed with underpants ... I've read all of those as well ...
As far as my house list goes, it used to be the norm that I would get Swallows well before House Martins on the year list. But in recent years ... the last four anyway ...we've had it the other way round ... House Martins have been spotted before Swallows. Only by a few days ... but it's a noticeable change. What with most migrants being a bit late this year, I hadn't got either of them from the house by yesterday. Would the lowly Swallow win this year ? Well..... in the evening I was up in my "study" .. that's not what the Significant Otter calls it .... and I spotted ... mere specks in the distant sky ... two hirudine-ish things. Further inspection showed them to be ... House Martins !! Yo !!! Ha ! They've won again. But it wasn't by much .... because ... 3 minutes later another hirundinesque object hoved into ( distant) view ...and this one was a Swallow ! It doesn't come much closer that that. Is this "science" ? Nah ! Is it worth sending in to the Local Recorder ? Nah !!! It it "Ornithology" ... certainly NOT. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. It's just ticking stuff. Having fun. That sort of thing. Afterwards I rather wished it had been 17 seconds later ... then I could have played the Cure's " 17 seconds" and got away with it. I probably will anyway. Have you worked out what's going on with those odd birds I showed you last time ? Here's another one .. NiGhtly WillEt Quite a few clues in there to help you see what it's all about. Music time ... surprise surprise .... it's The Cure .. " 17 seconds" .... this is my favourite version of it ... unusually, he does it on his own. Time slips away
And the light begins to fade And everything is quiet now Feeling is gone And the picture disappears everything is cold now The dream had to end The wish never came true And the girl Starts to sing Seventeen seconds A measure of life Here's another unusual bird list for you ..... it is vEry iffy .... Cliff-lift Swift Huffy TIT Nutty WILLET GENUINE KITE GUTLESS GULL ELECTrIC STILT Icy Thrush The first thing is ... I made them all up. What connects them all ? There is a quite common bird that could join the list ... ...as long as the first name was in capitals and the second part in lower-case !!! Can you find any more ? Can you invent some excellent new ones ? Meanwhile ... Death Cab for Cutie ... "We Looked Like Giants " .. epic stuff ... This is a clue about a puzzle I'm going to set you in the future ......
[0] Bittern [1] Coal Tit [2] Mistle Thrush [3] Short-toed Treecreeper [4] Oystercatcher Well, it wasn't any of them.... probably ... A few years ago I was strolling by one of the local lakes ....quite an unusual one actually .. a "pingo" I think ... post-glacial or whatever. Standing by the lake, wielding her binoculars, was a lady. She turned to me and said.. "There's a Black-Throated Diver over there." I raised my binoculars in a casual sort of way, as you do. You don't want to look too enthusiastic else people will think you're some gormless plonker. No. You stay cool, reserved, calm. You want to give the impression that you've seen hundreds of them, you know some of them personally. Well, dear readers, it was a Cormorant. Yes, a bit of a raggedy, bashed-up sort of cormorant, but it was indeed a cormorant. Anyway, I let her be, and carried on walking. No need to disabuse her of her pleasant discovery. However, on the way back, the bedraggled cormorant was still swimming around happily. But the woman was on her mobile, ringing out the news that there was a B-Th D at what I will call Sethman Lake for the sake of secrecy. Aha. That changed things didn't it. If she carried on like that loads of twitchers and idiots and local-listers would be using up hours of time and gallons of petrel driving miles to see a ... cormorant. I felt I should say something. I was very diplomatic. I could have been horrible and said " You great pudding, that it a cormorant, and definitely not a Black-Throated Diver, and you must be stark staring mad to ever have thought it was. If you keep messaging it, they will be both disappointed and angry." What I actually said was .. " I know it does look a lot like a Black-Throated Diver, and it nearly had me going a bit, but looking at it in detail I can see that it is actually a very odd-looking Cormorant. It really would be a bit of a shame if anyone made a special trip to see it. " Her reply was an absolute corker, and it put me thoroughly in my place... here we go .. " Well, for your information, it has been seen by a real birdwatcher who has seen them in South America and has got proper binoculars." No word of a lie. That was what she said. Readers ... I just walked away. With my inferior binoculars and total lack of South American experience. I was hurt, it's true. I trudged back gloomily to the car, wondering if it was worth carrying on with my inferior optics and my lack of international know-how. Somehow, over the next few weeks and months, I managed to make some sort of recovery, though it all still hurts to this day. I realise now that my week in Lithuania and 2½ hours in France have left me totally lacking in all departments, and my antiquated Zeiss bins are rubbish. I'm not normally glum. But all the way home I felt very glum. I couldn't afford to get proper binoculars and pay for a trip to South America. When I told The Significant Otter my sad tale, she said I shouldn't have interfered. Yes ... I'm an interfering old Hector. But who was this mysterious "proper" birdwatcher ? Did anybody actually turn up to (not) see the B-THr-D ? We will probably never know. Maybe I should just go and live all alone in a "village by the sea" .... Dwedais i ddim fy fod yn mynd Dwedais i ddim fy fod yn mynd Pentref wrth y mor rwy ti'n galw fi A rwyn dechrau crynu Yn ei llygaid chi'n gweld y mor Yn ei llygaid chi'n gweld y mor Pentref wrth y mor rwy ti'n galw fi A rwyn dechrau crynu Rhoddwch dy ben tu ol dy breichiau Siglwch dy pen, siglwch dy coesau Rhoddwch dy ben tu ol dy breichiau Siglwch dy pen, siglwch dy coesau Rhywbeth yn rhywle, a rhywbeth yn anghywir Rhywbeth yn rhywle, a pethau yn anghywir Hey ... it's the 50th post and I haven't done anything special to mark the occasion. |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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