Many will remember the mega-daunting task Involving the Observers Book of Birds What could it be ? , you're sure to ask ... it seems to have attracted lots of nerds read on, read on, you birders, and see what's to be done its just about absurd as a woodlouse marathon ! Ages ago, when I was young and keen, I wrote about an amazing and daunting challenge. On January 1st, you open your moth-eaten copy of the Observer's Book of Birds. The first species you need to "get" is the Carrion Crow, next up is the Hooded Crow, then the jolly Jackdaw, the Chough ....... right through the book page by page, bird by bird, and finally finishing with the Tricky Tarmigan and, at last, the Capricious Capercaillie ! And everything in between ... in book order .... in a year !!!!! It proved to be far too tough ! You're going to want Cirl Bunting pretty soon, Snow Bunting a few pages on, Shore Lark shortly, Firecrest, Grasshopper Warbler, Lesser Spot followed by Wryneck , Sea-Eagle, Montagu's Harrier ( you're roughly half-way by then)... and it goes on its relentlessly punishing schedule. Nobody .... nobody at all, managed it. Many crashed and burned midway through Feb ! Maybe some diehards battled on into the next year to try to finish it, but I suspect they had given in way before that. BUT .... BUT .... recently someone emailed me with an interesting proposition .... what about doing it in the other direction .... whizzing up to Scotland on 1st Jan to get Caper then Ptarmigan, Red Grouse, Pheasant ( dead easy), Quail, Partridge, and when summer comes you'll be well into warblers, and near the end, February-time, you'll be fine for Waxwing and Brambling , cleaning up with Jay and Magpie. It's a thought, is it not ? But .... can any of you intrepid souls out there make it OK ?
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A little while ago (#1051) I wrote about a potential " Lack of Swallows" .... there's been a letter in the local paper about it as well. Blimey !! 1051-swallows-lack-of-again-maybe.html But so far it hasn't been quite as drastic as the one two years ago. I only saw 1 yesterday. And so far this morning I've seen none ... but so far it has been hefty rain, which might put them off a bit. And it won't be doing the Swifts any good either. So ... if the previous " duff Swallow year" was real, and not just a local anomaly or bad luck, then what IS causing them ? The obvious thing is their highly hazardous risky route which they have to niftily negotiate. So .... why don't "we" ..that's me and you .... have a go at counting the number of Swallows you spot over a whole day ... and then send your results to ME. [email protected] is the place to send your results. And there's to be no " going to a lake 28 miles away" that you know will be awash with them. That biases the whole shebang. No. Just "do it" wherever you happen to be going. OK .... that's all sorted. So now, the music .... KLEE "Zwischen den Jahren" ( Between the years) Not one of my drawings .... I think it comes from "Coot Club" ..... one of Arthur Ransome's brilliant stories ...... I read them all avidly in my early teens, and wondered if I would ever go to the Norfolk Broads ..... and I did ... many, many times .... Here's a "fascinating" and "accurate" index for you all to peruse. And as an added bonus, it is a rather unusual one. But, dear readers, where has it come from ? Afternoon, sunny 103 Afro, frizzy, huge 183 Algae, choking 13 Boys, bigger 113 Chimpanzee, looked like 133 Columns, rows, studied 263 Door, back 63 Element, fluttering in his 163 If you leave me too, dancing to 233 January, 2004 173 Kitchen, papered, peach-psychedelic 73 Knot, jammed, tight 223 Ladybird, change of 3 Number, 8 193 Portswood, favourite place 23 Potential, collective 33 Reaction, mother's 203 Room, told to go up to 123 Rumps, legs, biting 43 Static, irritable, buzzing with 273 Sunspots, lightning bright 253 Stuff, banging, tree, up for 83 Sky, piece of , my 143 Tail, fanned 53 Tiles, squeaky 153 Vehicle, Pursuit, Dinky Spectrum 93 Viewpoint 243 Waiting, bored 213 After all that excitement, some music ..... an absolute belter ! Manu ...... "T'es bo, t'es con " Unfortunately, there are no prizes for the solution .... except the wonderfulness of knowing it.
It has drizzled steadily all day today ..... normally we would have hated it ... but it was the first significant rain for many, many bone-dry days. So we were pleased, having started to wonder if it would never rain again in what is usually a pretty soggy place to live. For years we've had jackdaws around the house, a dozen or so, ... but this year there's been 30-ish, and then ,three weeks ago there was a massive increase around the 200 mark ..... maybe more. Don't know why. They've been a devil to count, they swirl around like mad, disappearing and reappearing in seconds, and constantly splitting up and reassembling. Well , this morning I tried to solve the problem ... I went up to the "office" and took about 30 snaps of them whizzing around over about 5 minutes. Lots of the snaps were blurry, lots were just dinky dots, but a few were reasonably OK and countable. Here's four of them that were "reasonably countable" ....... why not have a go .... this one has captured most of the flock, but they're a bit small...... This one has a chunk blocked out at the bottom ... This one has a different chunk blocked out at the bottom ... This, I think , is the least worst one ! They're small, but it has most of the flock ..... So ... it would be smashing if you had a go at counting them ... after this jangly music ....... Now there's a something to think about . So .. I'm going to put a picture here so that you can think about that, and its possible consequences. Well, two pictures actually .... that way you will have more time to cobble together some sort of an answer .... The truth is birds tend to sleep in little chunks ... they need to be alert. They cannot risk the long, deep sleep to which we are accustomed. They will also sleep in the daytime, if they feel safe enough. And some birds will sing in the darkness. The obvious ones are nightingales, robins, thrushes etc. And some chatter in the dark ..magpies, rooks etc. So, by and large, the amount of daylight doesn't matter too much. And here's a more local observation ..... in my garden the birds don't arrive at dawn .... there's quite a time gap between first light and bird activity... sometimes up to 40 minutes. That's sorted then. Then there's the problem of lengthy migration routes. How do they get to sleep while making huge flights over the ocean. Sometimes for 24 hours plus. Well, one thing is, they are known to land on ships, sometimes in large numbers. But lacking those ships, , instead of allowing the whole brain to sleep, they can let each half of its brain ( and it's eye) to take turns to rest. Its called Unilateral Eye Closure. Time for the music now ... this'll wake you up ..... and cheer you up ... a real belter ... ..and I know you'll want to sing along with it ..... here's the "words" video .... I found this passage in a book about word games....... and there's a helpful clue in that title above....... When Mary ran across our new orchard in such a hasty manner, we all wondered why she did so; but her cousin Victor rapped her knuckles, for which Dick cudgelled him soundly. " Stop!" cried Jane. "How can you? Of all ugly fellows, I declare you are the worst !" " I call this a lark," Ralph exclaimed, laughing heartily. " You would not laugh if you had had such a blow or rap!" said Mary, with the tears in her eyes. " Can't you see that I weep?" " Never mind," interrupted Ellen, archly. " Let us all kiss and be friends." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ But now, the final installment of " Roy Harper Week" ..... How does it feel to be completely unreal ..... The "answer" to all that up there can be found at the far end of this link....
301-things-to-do-now-that-winter-is-here.html Just scroll down to the end of that post, and you'll find all the answers. Way, way back at post # 530 ( 28th June 2019) I showed you an ancient bird poem .... here's the link to it ...you wouldn't want to miss it .... 530-phyllyp-sparowe.html ... and after aeons of time, here's the next bit of it. And your job is to work out what all those birds are. And what they're like, and what they do. Off we go ..... Our chaunters shalbe the cuckoue, The culver, the stockedowve, With Puwyt the lapwyng, The versycles shall syng. The bitter with his bumpe, The crane with his trumpe, The swan of Menander, The gose and the gander, The ducke and the drake, Shall watche at his wake; The pecocke so prowde, Bycause his voyce is lowde, And hath a glorious tayle, He shall syng the grayle; The owle, that is so foule, Must helpe us to houle; The heron is so gaunce, And the cormoraunce, With the fesaunte, And the gaglynge gaunte, And the churlysshe chowgh; The knoute and the rowgh; The barnacle, the bussarde, With the wylde mallarde; The dyvendop to slepe; The wather-hen to wepe; The puffyn and the tele, Money they shall dele To poore folke at large, That shall be theyr charge; The semewe and the tytmose; The wodcocke with the long nose; The threstyl with her warblyng; The starlyng with her brablyng; The roke, with the ospraye That putteth fysshes to a fraye; And the denty curlewe, With the tyrtyll most trew. ( Therys anothr thrry paygess of thatte sorte of thynge) Well, Roy Harper Week is still trundling along .... as am I .... As you all know, a couple of posts back (1075) I was wondering about " the commonest bird I've never seen ?" ... .. so I also wondered .. "what's the commonest bird you've never seen ?" So, seeing as I started it, I feel obliged to show you my shortlist of six .... .. in no particular order ... I can't pin down their relative common-ness! ... and probably not the totally accurate shortlist anyway.... Black Kite (missed them several times) Ptarmigan ( I ran out of time on a short Scottish holiday) Capercaillie ( only had an hour or so in its main area.) Two-barred Crossbill ( missed one in Wales)(Grrr) Radde's Warbler ( dipped a few times) Penduline Tit ( missed out on them twice) But how do I whittle that down to the commonest one ? I've tried putting them in "order of common-ness" but I haven't been able to dig out enough relevant data. I suppose Ptarmigan might be the one . BUT ... it would be fascinating to get some shortlists + final selections from some of you. So ...I'll leave that to you to have a go at. My email is, as always, [email protected] And/or you could put them on here as a comment. Meantime, 'tis still Roy Harper Week ....... " The Same Old Rock" Two of my regular readers , Percy and Patricia Pumpkin, of 357 Acacia Mansions, Widnes, have asked me to write more about rubbish indexes/indices ... and luckily I have got some fresh index-related criticism to .....er .... entertain them, and, of course, you lot. But first, you should have a gander at some of my previous award-winning articules about them. Not Percy and Patricia ... indexes. Especially duff ones. Or silly ones. So...here's links to some of them ... 101-toads-swifts-binoculars-all-human-life-is-here.html -134-that-index-and-a-better-one.html 232-kerwacky-wack-twit-pee-oo-etc.html 491-more-index-fun.html 789-yet-another-index.html 830-a-mystery-index-from-the-distant-past.html Plenty of top reading there then ... now here's a really crap index for you to cherish .... here's a tiny selection of this gormless feat of indexing from that book up there ... Canary p156 Well, you turn to page 156, and what do you find ? No Canary .. no. Instead, we eventually find " the Canaries" under the entry for Trumpeter Finch. What sort of nit would put that in an index ? Martin, Sand. p100, 104 All you find on page 100 is the useful fact that Alpine Swifts have upper parts similar in shade to those of a Sand Martin. Moorhen, Common p31,54,93. Rather a strange entry ,it's not exactly rare. and neither was Sand Martin for that matter. When you go to p31 , all you find is the very useful fact that Little Bitterns are "about the size of a Common Moorhen." Terrific ! Maybe the indexer knows bog all about birds. Magpie, Black-billed p95. The only two entries on p95 are Black-billed Cuckoo and Yellow-billed Cuckoo. It does get a mention under Gt. Sp. Cuckoo , with the fascinating fact that its main host species are the Carrion Crow and, at last, the Black-billed Magpie. I really must write that down in my "useful facts" book. Hooded Merganser, p177 There's no proper entry for it ..all you see on p. 177 is a list of "Species for which no photographs of the live wild birds that were seen in Britain and Ireland exist or can be traced." So ... all that tells us is that Hooded Merganser isn't in the blasted book anywhere. By the time I'd looked them up I got the feeling that the proof-reader was down at the pub rather than doing his/her job. Linnet, Common p.156 All it gets on p156 is actually under the Trumpeter Finch, where it tells us lucky readers that "it is similar in size to a "Common Linnet." Vital news !! .... and it goes on and on ... a relentlessly crap index .."World Class Ineptitude" .... on the plus side, the photographs are quite good! And, the Common Moorhen, which is of course astonishingly rare, gets three (3) entries on pages 31,54 and 93. p31 is about the Little Bittern p54 is about the American Coot. p93 is about Pallas's Sandgrouse. I bet you can't wait to buy the book and find out why on earth "The Common Moorhen" turns up in those three accounts. Here's a possible set of scenarios .. A Little Bittern was cooked and eaten by Shakespeare's mum's pet Moorhen An American Coot attacked Lee Evans as he was watching a Moorhen. Boris Johnson's pet Pallas's Sandgrouse slowly turned into a Moorhen in 148 days. BUT NOW ... the music ... 'tis "Roy Harper Week" ..... "Forever" ... which, of course, we aren't. Now there's a question ! ( And a lot trickier than I imagined in the first few minutes after" thinking it up".) We've all seen loads of common birds, rather fewer not-so-common ones, and some rarities too. So, suppose we had a list of UK birds in "rarity/common-ness" order, what would be the "commonest" one you've haven't seen ? I have to admit, it would be hard work compiling such a list. But interesting as well. And the list would be a bit different in different parts of the UK. But ...... you might have to do a bit of thinking, and scanning the UK list for a while, building a list of possible answers ...and then choosing " the one." Since thinking this challenge up about two hours ago, I've cobbled together a "shortlist" of my own "commonest birds I've never seen" ... but I'm going to have to find out how relatively "rare" each of my candidate birds is ( and that might well be tricky) before I can come to a final answer. And I hope that some of my readers ( that's you) will have a go at it as well, and send me (a) your shortlist and (b) your final choice. You could send your results to me at [email protected] Or as a comment tacked on to the end of this post. I'm sure that the results would be illuminating at the very least. But meanwhile, the music. And as it's Roy Harper Week at my house, here's another of his fine songs ..... "Tom Tiddler's Ground" ... that's the space between the high and low tides. I haven't been able to find a live video of him doing it, but a song is anything that can stand by itself ..... off we go ..... I thought you had passed, but you caught me at last,where you know I could never be worn.
And now that you're here, and you finally hear, it's so clear on the wings of the dawn. Where your smile starts to shine, as you breath in the brine Of the spray on the very same day. The same day we all go, when we're sure that we know, what it is to be floating away. And there's a lovenest, in Tom Tiddler's Ground (x3), long before Eden, was lost and found. But you know you'll have to be kind, if you're ever gonna find, The place that your face could have shown. Especially when you don't dare, to force anyone there,to share in the ice being blown. And there's a lovenest, in Tom Tiddler's Ground (x3), long before Eden, was lost and found. And you heard me say 'yes', but you know its a guess, as somebody else shouted 'no'. And you know freedom is free, of all the forces that be, And the ice that you too thought you should throw. And there's a lovenest, in Tom Tiddler's Ground (x3), long before Eden, was lost and found. I thought you had passed, but you caught me at last,where you know I could never be worn. And now that you're here, and you finally hear, it's so clear on the wings of the dawn. And you know freedom is free, of all the forces that be, And the ice that you too thought should be thrown. And there's a love nest, in Tom Tiddler's Ground (x3), long before Eden, was lost and found. Several hours later .... I've got my "shortlist" of " the commonest birds I've never seen" At least that's a start. But, as I mentioned above, working out which is the commonest of those is a bit tricky. ( I have a sneaky feeling that this "idea" might run and run ..... tough, but fascinating to do ) |
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October 2022
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