You're running down the track, desperate to tick the Blue-Billed Twinklebird that arrived at Sprinkley Trunks last night. Your directions, hastily scribbled down on the back of a fag packet at 6am, are a bit of a mess. You see a fork ahead, but which path do you take ... left or right ? Luckily, just as you reach the two diverging paths, a returning birder appears. You really really need to find out which is the right path ! He explains that he's in a terrible rush. He'll only answer 1 ( one) question. But the trouble is ...there's two sorts of birders. Especially when it comes to rarities. Two tribes ... Liars and Truthers. But you don't know which he is ! Quickly, in a matter of seconds, you come up with a question that will tell you the right answer whether he's a liar or not. Oh yes !! Clever, logical you !!! But ..what is that question ? Aha ! ....... but don't worry, I'm sure you'll get it soon enough. And here's some totally unrelated music ...
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This, by the way, is the church where I was christened. Well, the top of it anyway. But if you scroll down a bit, you'll see it all. When I walked down Kirkgate as a kid... I always felt the thing was going to topple over and crush me. But obviously, it didn't. Not so long ago, me and The Significant Otter dropped in, and there was "an official person" hovering around, and when I told him I was christened there he hushered hus hinto the hoffice and selected the christening book for that year and there I was ! With my mum's and dad's signatures and everything !! Redolent. But .... on with the proper stuff... I found out the other day exactly what "steeplechasing" was. Apparently, horse-riders would race from one church steeple to another . The idea behind that being that those tall spires were visible from a long way away, so you were not likely to get lost, even if you had to detour a bit. And horsy "steeplechases" would involve, no doubt, jumping over farm fences, hedges etc which is why that sort of horse-race is nowadays called a steeplechase. They don't actually jump over "steeples". Well, I don't see why bird surveys can't be done in the same way ... why bother with boring old 10km squares and the like when you can go steeple to steeple. You'll also be pleased to learn that Stapel = a "stack" or "pile" in German. Everything's connected you know. Anyway, I'm just saying .... it would be quite an interesting way of counting/surveying birds rather than trudging around some duff/muddy/deserted old transect or whatever. And if you took the extra step of doing it on a horse, well, that would be a thing ! I wonder if it's easy to use binoculars from a horse ? Have any of you lot tried it ? Anyway ... [a] it's a thought ! and [b] it's a short article ..which is good. and [c] I've had another idea for a survey method. But now we want a bit of relevant and wonderful music ..er .... oh yes ... Patti Smith ... "Horses" A while after I wrote that " Tick Dances" thing with the clip of the"Gold Dance" a couple of posts ago (#457)... I remembered this .... and luckily, found it ..... here we go ..... featuring The Humble Magpie ... I bet you've all been on tenterhooks waiting for the final results of my amazing and crucial Common Gull Winter Counts. I did counts over the whole winter period because hardly any Common Gulls turned up in my little patch the previous winter. But this winter they certainly got back to their previous levels. So ...here they are in super-graphical-format ..... amazingly consistent, surprisingly. The counts over the last few weeks have all registered no Common gulls at all, so this is it for the 2018-19 winter. The number of Common Gulls is on the vertical axis, and the total number of all gulls present is on the horizontal axis. The most obvious thing about it is the almost perfect correlation between the two. Which, as I have mentioned earlier, was a surprise to me. I have also shared my thoughts about the "mechanism" that could make that happen. When the total flock size was ‹ 300, there would be ‹10 Commons. With a total flock size between 350 and 450, there would be 10-20 Commons. When the total flock was › 450, Commons reached 36-42. I haven't calculated the correlation coefficient, but it must be pretty high! Here's the link to what I wrote about it earlier on in the counts .... 297-common-gull-counts-update.html It's very illuminating .. especially if you print it out and set fire to it . Anyway, away with all this Stodgy Statistical Stuff .. let's have a lovely song........ and here's a words video so you can sing along if you should so wish ... For some gormless reason the " thingys" wouldn't let me put this one on the previous post ...despite several attempts. But now, here it is ..... dragged up screaming with rage from post 457 ...... A long time ago I told you all about those " tick celebrations" that birders often do after a successful twitch. There's really two parts to the thing....... When they get home, they have a special tree they climb ..... usually fairly close to where they live. They climb back down again of course. But before they leave the ticking site, certainly before they set off home, individual birders all have their own little " tick dance" ...some sort of physical thing they do in the immediate aftermath of an exciting sighting . That all got started, I think, when they did that " gold dance" in that "Detectorists" series. We wanted some of that, But the tree-climbing thing ..that's been going on for yonks. Richard Jefferies did it. Eric Hardy did it. T.A.Coward did it. I've been at the forefront of "widening" the "possibilities" for those little dances, and I've been particularly influential in bringing in the "silly walk" as an option, especially for older members of the birding universe. But I didn't find out until recently about these .... compilations of "silly walks" from different countries which are daft, cathartic and lovely. As am I.... so here's a few..... for a start, here's some Hungarians showing us their moves ...... surely one of these will be right for you...... Here's one of the really early ones ... the uniforms are, of course, optional .... Here's another rich source of ideas ... ..and here's some oddbods from Brno .... So..if you haven't sorted out your "tick celebration" yet, now's your big chance . Here's links to two of my previous articles about "that sort of thing" ..... 174-tick-celebrations-a-selection.html 238-another-space-saving-tick-dance.html ...and here's that "Detectorist's Dance .... even a clapped-out old cynic like me finds it beautiful ! I spotted this gull sp. in yesterday's paper.... the trouble is, the ID would be easier if only we knew where it was. But I suppose you'll just have to do your best. Here's two more snaps ... but they don't really get you any further. So ..good luck with that then. Plus, I couldn't think of a song to go with it ... so I just picked a song I liked anyway ... While I was looking all over the place for those vinyl birdsong records, without any success, what I DID find was this home-made planisphere which must be at least 35+ years old. You can see straight away what a high-end product it is. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that that's the same pair of trousers I was wearing when I assembled it one rainy afternoon in 1877 ! Let's open it up and have a look at the "innards" as we stargazers call them ... notice especially the precision cutting-out, the nifty rectangle of yellowing Perspex which I cut out from one of the eye-holes of my dad's wartime gas-mask and the neat paper fastener which holds it all together, and best of all, the red-inked ecliptic I added as a special feature. On a small, home-made one like this there's only room for the brightest stars .... but its good enough to navigate your way round the sky at any time of year. Here's a more detailed view to show you how to set it for any night and any time ... I've lined up 18h and about the 28th of December .....and on that night it tells you that that there is a triangle of three bright stars towards the West ... Altair below, then Vega a bit higher in the sky, and Deneb higher still... and way over to the north is The Plough, and going from the Plough right past the Pole Star lies the W-shaped Cassiopeia high overhead.. You can also see that the sky is about the same at, say, 16h towards the end of January. Here it is set to a different time of year ... June/July-ish. And at 5am-ish Cassiopeia would be about overhead-sih, Betelgeuse ( Beetlejuice) way down on the Eastern-ish horizon, as is Gemini, and Capella nice and high-ish. Unfortunately it would be much too light-ish at that time of year to see any of them ! But I would know where the beggars were-ish ! Hah ! Many, many years later ( about 1923) (postwar over-optimism) I bought (!) a "real" planisphere. Here it is ... yes, I know all you're looking at is the crate of Scotch whisky at the far right. But that is a mere sideline ... concentrate ! And here it is again set for NOW. Which is about 8am GMT, Tuesday 16th April. Had it been dark, Cetus the Whale would have been visible on the Eastern Horizon, Cygnus the Swan would be almost right overhead.... and so on. But it isn't dark, but we know where they are. As you can see, it is only slightly better than mine. But a lot bigger ... and it has got a few more stars ... and the Milky Way ( Llwybr llaethog) But ..what's this got to do with birds ? Well, if somebody told you that they'd heard a gannet calling overhead one calm and clear midnight which seemed to start at Cygnus and was next heard in the Perseus area you'd be able to find out what direction it was going in. So there .... now you know. And, of course, you'll be quick to think up many other practical reasons for having one. Music ... well, we're conflicted aren't we. We could play something by top Welsh band Llwybr Llaethog, or we could have Tous des Stars by the excellent French band Dolly. Let's have them both eh ? I expect you've worked out which is which, but just in case, this is the Welsh one ... the title means " a life so different" which is what your new Planisphere will make yours .... ..and maybe not. .. it's all about my astonishing research into the Scaly-Throated Foliage-Gleaner. I'd have to say, looking at that photograph, it's pretty duff foliage he's gleaning. Surely there must be a better way of life than that ! Anyway, that's his problem. Moving on ......... So .... what's so special about this Costa Rica/Ecuador/Mexico - inhabiting bird ? Well readers .... its full of those ghosts ... Scaly-Throated Foliage-Gleaner for example. I hope you can spot the Scoter lurking inside it. and here's the impressive list of other birds to be found inside it as well ... Roller Hen Ooaa Shag Teal Loon Rail Chat Crane Eagle there might well be more ..... maybe you can add some. Then there's a few mammals Tiger Dog Cat Hog Coati Stoat And fish ........................ Shad Cod Gar And an amphibian ................ Toad And invertebrates ............................... Cleg Flea ... there's also two sorts of weather, some beverages and dangerous weapons as well as a whole country inside it. That's not bad now is it ? But maybe ... just maybe ... there might be even more inside some other species of bird. There are birds with far longer names than that. Never mind that Black Hole they've just photographed. This sort of thing is far more important ... and anybody can have a go. And, by the way .... there IS a bird called Ooaa .... so there. Here's a song with a Bat inside it. Yes, I'm a crafty old Hector. Oh yes ... 'tis the 14th of April .... The Day After The Galactic Record Store Day ...or something similar. I heard about it on the radio. I rushed up to the attic with the sheer excitement ! The first record I ever bought was a single ..Tin Soldier by the Small Faces. I hadn't actually got a record player, but that didn't matter because it was for the girl next door. And she DID have a record player. The next one was Magical Mystery Tour by that Beatles-Band. An EP that was. Still no record player though. It too went round to TGND's record player, where we played it at the wrong speed for a minute or so before realising owt was wrong. Simple times eh ! Then I went to University ( only just though) and met somebody with a record player. So I bought her A Saucer Full of Secrets by Pink Floyd. Yes, a whole LP. But as far as this blog is concerned, it's Bird Song Records we want to hear about. I've got all sorts .... they were fairly crap, but that's all there was at the time. All vinyl of course. But...why didn't I put this on yesterday ? Well, I couldn't find any of them. Not one. I really must try to find them.They're somewhere. There's even a German one. They're not singing in German. But .. in more recent times, after the invention of the bicycle, I got some bird CDs as well. I think I will be able to find those .... eventually. So, while I'm looking for the little dodgers, you could be doing the same with yours. If any. It's about time something sensible appeared on here .... and this is it ... two gannet-related questions...... [1] Gladys spots 1 gannet on the 1st of the month 1 gannet on the 2nd of the month 2 gannets on the 3rd 3 gannets on the 4th 5 gannets on the 5th 8 gannets on the 6th 13 gannets on the 7th 21 gannets on the 8th .... and so on. On the last day of the month, she sees 317811 gannets !! So ... which month is it ? There's two ways of getting the answer. The mathematical way... and the other way. [2] Henrietta plucks all the feathers from her sadly deceased pet Gannet, Fred. She counts them... there are 8128 of them. Crumbs ... says Henrietta. Why did she say that ? And now, to cool the fevered brain ... Emily Loizeau .... " Voilà Pourquoi" |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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