Here's a list of my "sightings from the past" over quite a few Septembers ... 1st Nothing 2nd Er ... nothing 3rd 2008 Black-necked Grebe at Conder pools. 4th Nowt 5th Zilch 6th 1998 Pec Sand at Leighton Moss. 2004 Red-Crested Pochard at Glasson Marina. 7th 2002 Snowy Egret .. Caerlaverock. Woo ! 8th A total blank. 9th An even totaller blank. 10th ( This isn't a bird) ... Convolvulus Hawkmoth on our clothesline.. the local recorder came to see it !! I got the feeling that they didn't believe it. 11th Nuffink 12th Nuffinker 13th 1987 Sabine's Gull. Crumbs ! 14th 2003 Baird's Sandpiper Thriepmuir Res, Lothian. 15th Lesser Yellowlegs, between Nateby and Eagland Hill, Lancs ... got it after 3 visits. 16th Back to Porridge. 17th Grey Phalarope, Fleetwood ICI pools. 18th Nada 19th 1993 Booted Warbler, Filey 1993 Red-throated Pipit Spurn 1993 Great Snipe Spurn 1993 Yellow-browed Warbler Spurn 1993 Demoiselle Crane ..prob the most exciting day of my life ! And it was quite likely yours as well.... (?) 2000 ( A strange thing ..a Nightjar slept on a grit tray at Leighton Moss for a whole day ....huge crowds gathered, and eventually it flew off at dusk. ) Memorable! 20th In stark contrast, bog all. 21st 2005 (Again, a non-bird) A Hummingbird Hawkmoth put in 5-minute appearance in the garden. Blimey AND Crumbs. And double-crumbs !!! 22nd 2001 Ferruginous Duck, male, Leighton Moss Public Hide. 1996 Blue-winged Teal, Pennington Flash. 23rd Zero 24th 1989 Ring-Necked Duck , Dockacres, N. Lancs 25th Absolutely nothing. 26th Total zero-ness. 27th Broad-billed Sandpiper, Lane Ends, Pilling, Lancs. 28th 1988 Crane, Killington Lake, Cumbria 1997 Barred Warbler, Blackpool. On the way back, my car packed in for ever and ever. 29th (2 x 8) - (4 x 4) = ? 30th Grey Phalarope off Heysham Harbour North Wall !! 15 blank days, 17 if you chuck out the two insect sightings ,,,, but the good days were bloody amazing. Snowy Egret, Sabine's, Gt. Snipe, ... and a long-list of excellent stuff. So ..what will this September hold ? And now, a terrific and relevant (!) song .......
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Ever since my late teens I've been going to Norfolk ..... and over the years I've got there by various methods .... family holidays, then in our various cars, and several times by hitching... the most arduous bit of hitching was Barrow-to-Bacton/plus back again, with Lancaster-to-Bacton/and back again as the norm. Hitching back was always harder work. Once I drove Mr.G there, and back the next day. Coo. ! There have been a few disasters ... -62-dont-go-birding-on-a-bike-2.html But I haven't been there since 2014. I don't really know why...probably because we go to other places now. Nearer places. And now I'm old and knackered, I probably won't be going any more. Why is everything so far away ? I've been reading The Big Bird Race again, which is what got me onto this topic. And as far as I can tell, I've been to everywhere that they went to on that epic day. And despite my ongoing campaign to "find the video" of it, nothing has appeared. I've even suggested a remake of it. The two "captains/drivers" would be Lee Evans and Michaela Strachan ..... that should spark a few " confrontations" ... [Back to Benacre .... ] ... and one of the finest and most elusive spots was Benacre Broad. 31st July 2009. I had tried to get to it several times ...... I wrote all about those attempts here .. 35-benacre-broad.html At least it was actually findable ... in stark contrast to Snettisham.... 11-places-i-dont-go.html I'm sorry for the rambling nature of all that .... it's been a bit like writing my own obituary ! Well... that's enough Doom and Gloom for now ... there's always another day .... Two (2) posts ago ( #926) I showed you a whole dollop of birds to identify ..... and this time 'tis going to be American birds .... some dead easy, some a trifle cryptic-er ...... here we go ... I'm sure you've found the lot in a mere 38 hours...... or maybe just in a mere ! Here's a song to drag you out of that late-August slumber ..... Well, you'll be amazed at the quality of that Brattish Birds cover picture up there. No expense was spared. But what you really want is scathing put-downs of top birders, gormless cartoons, brain-scrabbling puzzles, and the occasional "Celebrity Birder" ...... Well, here's something like that ... ..and now, a tricky one ... as with Mr. Sharrock's shambolic grids, you can skip around the grid diagonally, backwardsly, upply-downly-sidesly but only 1 s et p at a time. Off you go then ..... ..and now, the relevant music spot ..... This next one uses the same rules ... That's enough silliness for now.
This morning Mr. G slipped my long-lost "Not BB" imitations wot I wrote about 15-20 years ago through the letter box. I already had the draft version of the first one but those two are the proper, almost-like-a-real-magazine versions. They were entitled Brattish Birds One and, remarkably, Brattish Birds Two. And it turns out that BB2 is just as daft as BB1 was/is. So, of course, I'm going to be bunging bits of the BB2 on here ..and we'll start off with a simple thing ..... . what are these birds ? So ..there we are then ... and now 'tis The Music Spot, currently 2378th in the " Best Music Spot within Flintshire" ... up a thrilling three places ! Exams have been in the news a lot lately. They've even loomed large in my recent scribblings. I was thinking about the different ways that exams can be written. The same content can be put in simple ways, or complicated ways. And the same "problem" can be put into different scenarios. On top of that, some questions just require you to regurgitate something you've learned, like the capital city of Ecuador ... but with others you might have to DO something with it, such as solving an equation or interpreting a graph, or writing two different interpretations of the same poem. It all depends on the setter. And it can make a lot of difference to the outcome. You can even write 2 x 2 in much more complicated and obscure ways ! [1] What is the product of the cube root of 8 and the 12th root of 4096 ? ..or you can get deliberately tricky trappy questions ... [2] If the temperature in your house goes from 5 degrees 10 degrees, should you feel twice as warm ? ... or ones where you might well trot out the obvious, but wrong, answer ... [3] What's that stuff that you can see coming out of the spout of a boiling kettle ? But what's all that got to do with birding ? Well, many "bird clubs" have exams ...... and I've asked you tricky questions too... ... and if you don't believe it ....... ...... 148-bird-related-awkward-questions-73.html 149-bird-related-awkward-questions-7.html 152-top-questions-for-top-birders-17.html 155-quiz-update.html 157-another-blasted-quiz-update.html -190-flintshire-bid-clubs-latest-exam-results.html But let's get down to business ..... a "real" exam ... well, an imagined real one anyway ... So, here's how I think an Eric Hardy exam would have looked ..... don't expect any full stops from him ! And nary a comma in sight..... Ready ... steady .... GO ! ...hang on a minute while I get my 7-ton-trenchcoat off and get settled in the bus shelter none of those fancy jumped-up seminar rooms for me right then first question how come all those TV so-called "naturalists" tell us there's a lifetime of interest in a cottage garden and then they bog off to South America to get loads of ticks and kudos and on top of that they get a fortune from the programmes they make about it all come on get scribbling next question coming up what about all this twitching is it ruining birding in my day anyone who ventured out of their street would be knocked unconscious robbed of all their possessions and thrown into the local pond and talking of ponds next question how many life-forms do you reckon there are in your local pond get writing don't forget their latin names as well question 4 how come some species are sexually dimorphic and yet their close congeners aren't that's something to think about and I covered it thoroughly in one of my recent articles in the Liverpool Echo so you've no excuse there but here's another one for you sit up at the back there you lazy middle-class layabouts let's see what you know about allopreening that should keep you busy for a bit even though I've started with the easy stuff so lets get on with it right then and by the way there's going to be none of that teacher-assessed grades for you lot this is a real exam and you'll get what you deserve and I don't mean that in a good way OK so now you've got an essay to write explaining why big birds tend to live longer than small ones and once you've got that sorted out put both sides of the debate about whether birding is a religion and come to some useful conclusion if you've got the time in between parading around waving placards about nonsensical social problems and spending all night at raves or "glasto" whatever that is and now my final question which I've already talked about in five of my award-winning Radio Liverpool programmes so you should know lots about it already so scurry off back to your luxury Student Accommodation which didn't exist back in my day when we mostly lived in tents but now they're all en-suite with picture windows and bookshelves and taps and all that sort of delux upper-middle-class jumped-up-status-signalling anyway I want a 2000 word essay about where evolutionary theory would be right now if Darwin had never gone to the Galapagos Islands and I expect to see you back here at the bus stop with your answers if you're up to it which you probably aren't with your namby-pamby coddled lifestyle and your luxury flats and your parents doing it all for you anyway ( at this point he jumped onto a passing bus and was whisked into the distance) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There's a bus right at the start of this one .... Eric would approve ..... Here's some "bird silhouettes" for you to ID .... and you could rack your brains to try to remember where I got them from... here we go then ... That subtly positioned filing card is covering the answers ..... This next lot are all birds in flight ....... I hope you didn't find them too baffling ..... and I also hope that you managed to work out where they came from.... though that might be tricky for younger readers. I'm going to bury the "answers" in the distant, pre-covid past ..... just click on the link, and scroll down past the tennis match etc, and you'll find the answers ... 202-monsieur-hulot-is-bamboozled-by-some-strange-birds.html ... and good luck to you all. ..but it all depends on what you know. ..and following on from that " multi-sighting" scenario from the previous post, here's another rollicking example of a mass twitch that deserved a "fail" for everyone involved ... here it is, in all its ( lack of) glory ... This is a truly gripping verse version of a Long-Ago Bit Of Bird-Spotting, or LABOBS to you, or not, as the case may be .... you'll see ..... We went to see a THRUSH It was really rather RARE We had to race and RUSH As we didn't quite know WHERE The stupid thing could BE So I got out the MAP And scanned it DESPERATELY But I was in a FLAP And I hadn't got a CLUE So we stopped and asked a MAN He was a birder TOO And he drew a sort of PLAN On a crappy bit of CARDBOARD With a lump of Gannet POO Then he walked off to STARBOARD Leaving us all thinking, WHO ? Could he possibly BE ? Maybe he's "Ticker" STEW Or Millington, or LEE ! That map just made things WORSE And we drove into a DITCH So we commandeered a HEARSE But we still did not know WHICH Would be the road to PICK As the plan was total CRAP And the suspension made us SICK So we stopped and had a NAP As all of us were KNACKERED Then we continued TERSELY And this time we went BACKWARD As it would only go REVERSLY But that was SERENDIPITOUS Because we found a straggly LINE Of twitchers, all quite CRAPULOUS But of the bird there was no SIGN It buggered off an hour AGO If only we'd not been so LATE We thought we should give it a GO And wait and wait and wait and WAIT It seemed like years as we waited and WAITED In the cold and wet and sludge and SLIME It's true to say our breath was BATED We could have been there till the end of TIME But at last, at last, I saw the BIRD It was miles away, the size of a FLEA Up the line, we spread the WORD And everyone was so happy to SEE Something that vaguely looked like a ZOOTHERA "Vaguely" isn't really a strong enough NAME For the way we'd ID'd it (by trial and ERROR) Any rational person would say it was LAME ..... Of course, it "had" to be the BIGGIE But we "knew" it didn't look the PART It was long, and slim, a bit like TWIGGY But us lot didn't give a FART We were all very quiet on the long drive BACK We stared out of the windows without a WORD That sighting was a load of CACK It was less like a tick, and more like a TURD So, what is the moral of this TALE ? Why is "that sort of thing" so COMMON ? Here's why ...it's the way of the adult MALE To be at the top, not down at the BOTTOM ! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I was rather chuffed with that one ... unlike all the turmoil around the A-level results, it spills the beans on something that does actually happen but nobody wants to admit it. The main difference is, with birding it doesn't really "matter" ...but when it comes to the future for a whole cohort of students trapped between rampant grade inflation and an inevitable future collapse, it does matter. But there are a lot of beans to be spilled about all that exam chaos, but a lot of truths about the background to it all are never going to be told. Maybe the young should "rise up" ..... This needs to be read in the context of the current " Exam Results Meltdown" of August 2020. In our little street, deep in the Flintshire countryside, something strange happened a while ago. I looked out of the back window at my modest garden, and there was an unusual dinky bird in the ivy (which is doing an excellent job of holding the trellis together.) Woo ! So ... I had the bins handy and got a semi-helpful look at it ..... enough to narrow it down a bit ... and then I nipped into the living room, got my camera and scope, and spent the next 1¾ minutes getting some crapsnaps and hastily scribbling a scribbly partially tentative description. Having "showed sparingly" for about 3 minutes, on and off, it disappeared, and I didn't get to see it again. I had a fair idea of what it was, but not 100% certain. I tidied it up, wrote a posh version of what I'd seen, and what I thought it probably was,and sent it off to the Beeby Arsy ( BBRC). What I didn't know until much later was ... that same bird had been seen by other people in the area. And some of them also sent their descriptions in, some good, some less good, some with photos of variable quality and/or drawings, some without. Some were first-timers, some had had previous rarities accepted, some had had rejections ..all human life was there. In a strange way, we'd all "done" the "same exam". Well, nearly the same. But, I wonder, will we all get the same results ? Will we get, for example, the result we "need" ? Or, to put it another way, the result we " deserve" ? There's a lot of "variables" for the "algorithm" to deal with... Some observers had better equipment than me, some worse. Some watched it for longer .. some a lot less. Some had seen that species before, some in other countries as well. Assuming they'd got it right, that is. Some had never seen one, for a whole variety of reasons. Not all of them even had binoculars. Some didn't have a bird book in the house at all, but just new it was something dramatic .... they found out what to do on the net and sent their account in . So ... we don't know yet what will happen. I am eagerly awaiting my positive result. But on the other hand, those other observers might bring an inkling of doubt to the whole event. The dreaded "two-bird" theory, for example. There might have to be a bit of " downgrading." I still haven't had a reply/judgement/scathing rejection. You can't help wondering if some of those "accounts" got accepted, and some got "rejected" ... even though they were all looking at the same thing. Maybe because of "previous track records". Maybe those with "good" track records were favoured. But other didn't. For ,maybe, a variety of good and bad reasons. And there's also the scenario when you got it right, but for the wrong reasons. And maybe, if each account was read by, say, 20 different "experts" some would "pass" it, and some wouldn't. And what about the situation where a submission gets mysteriously lost/misplaced .... But surely that would never happen .... no no no ! And now, this ... a remarkable Noir Désir song ... " Lost" You can't help thinking that some exams don't necessarily do the job they're supposed to do .... not reliably anyway.
â  ê Ê É î Î ô Ô û Û Ŵ ŵ Ŷ ŷ ç í á à â ä œ ç é è ê ë ç í ì î ï ó ò ô ö ù ø ú Ú û ü û Ï Ç ß Ü Ä Ë Ï Öñÿ•‡¡÷°¼½¾œ ƶ π There's doesn't seem to be a " Miss Clever" so I had to go with Madame Géniale. There's been a hell of a hoo-hah about exam results these last few days. And in the papers there's been lots of huge photos of hordes attractive girls celebrating their results,dressed up to the nines, and a few tiny photos of lone, badly dressed males sitting gloomily on their own, looking glumly at their results. That, dear readers, is the Way of the World. Well .. way back ( posts 514 and 516) I showed you lucky readers how the "exam system" could be manipulated so that any old fart could do well without too much effort. And amazingly, here are those two harticles .... Here's a "leaked" STQC exam paper .... nowadays you can't just let any old riff-raff into this top organisation you know....and this will sort the Wheatear from the Chiffchaff, and no mistake ! The good news is, you only have to answer 5 of the 8 questions .... you choose ! [a] Describe three ways in which bird-watching is similar to trainspotting, and three ways in which it isn't. [b] Birds have "scientific names" as you no doubt know. Match up the first bit with the correct second bit .... Puffinus crex Crex vanellus Perdix troglodytes Troglodytes puffinus Vanellus perdix [c] My favourite bird is the .................................... [d] Here's some jumbled-up bird names.... please put them right ... [1 ] tonK ....................... [2] Wern ...................... [3] otCo ...................... [4] okoR ..................... [5] worC ..................... [e] Which one of these is top birder S. Vere Benson's nickname ? [a] Droopy-drawers [b] Fat-arse [c] Severe Benson [d] Donkey-face [e] Grumpy-guts [f] Here's 5 of the famous " Scilly Isles" ...which one has the fewest letters .. [a] Bryher [b] St. Martins [c] St. Agnes [d] Tresco [e] Gugh [g] Here's a list of several different types of bird- spotter. Which one is the best ? † Twitcher Bird-spotter Birder Dude Ornithologist Bird-watcher [h] If you move all the letters of STQC down 1 place in the alphabet, what do you get ? Now try moving the letters of STQC up one place. Write down your answers. Well, I hope you've made wise choices to ensure your entry into the UK's best bird-lover's , er, society. But don't worry too much, because everybody passes the exam anyway. We need those subscriptions to keep pouring in. That way, we can carry on with all our good works, such as giving work experience to hordes of remarkably attractive,young, female interns and clapped-out old gaffers well past their sell-by date, not to mention safeguarding the "careers" of hundreds and hundreds of people who spend their whole time at their "terminals" persuading more people to buy over-priced peanut feeders. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now ...here's another Take" on the rotten-to-the-core Exam system .... Well well! This morning we got the astonishing and surprising(?)(not!) news that somebody has, for the 3rd year running, leaked some of the questions for an A level maths exam! And the answers as well. I find this deeply disappointing. You see, I would like to think that all those maths students would be "doing" maths because they liked doing maths. After all, they had a choice. They could have done Geography ( Geography is going places) or Art ( Easel'y mastered) or History ( A thing of the past) or even General Studies ( er?)... But they chose Maths. But apparently, some of them don't actually want to "do" it. But they DO want to pass the exam. Because ...er ..... they want to go to University. And the University accepts them because they have shown that they are good at it. But if they have simply copied the answers for £70, they might well not be. But strangely, a huge proportion of those students seem to get A's these days. Something doesn't seem right there. I don't think people have got any brighter over the last 30 years. You can't help wondering if that might be the cause of a lot of this "stress" that, it seems, vast numbers of students now suffer from when they realise that their study skills are not up to the pressure of doing difficult stuff. but hold on a minute ..... BUT WHAT'S THAT GOT TO DO WITH BIRD-SPOTTING ? Well, for a start, we set ourselves "exams" all the time. We're out there ID-ing dinky dodgers 3 miles up going "squeeeeee" or "twink" as a matter of course. Of course. Other utterances are available. Every day, every minute, we're being tested by the very subject matter we are involved with... ...elusive hoodwinks deep inside bushes .... raptors flying 2000 metres above us and 4 miles away .... warblers which sound very much like other warblers warbling..... a long-tailed tit/bearded tit "hybrid" that we'd love to think was a penduline tit, 749 metres away and 4 feet inside a reedbed. A flock of 11 skuas whizzing 30 cm above the windswept waves banking and shearing about 80 miles away in a force 8 whoosher at 6 am. We've all been there. That's what we do .... because, oddly enough, we BLOODY WELL WANT TO. And on top of that, there have been suggestions of actual " Birding Exams" set by Top Birders .... although I suspect that each "organisation" will have their own style ... oh yes. ( That's an idea and a ½ ... I'll get writing a "sample paper" for each one.) And as my loyal readers will know, I have leaked (after the actual exam of course) an actual " Flintshire Bird Club" exam. I did it to "reveal" a certain "hint" of "dumbing down" ...... here, if I can find it, is the link to it .... aha ...here it is ..... 190-a-leaked-flintshire-bird-club-exam-paper.html ..and this is why I leaked it .... -190-flintshire-bid-clubs-latest-exam-results.html But ..... what about the current " exam disaster" that is rapidly unravelling in front of us ? Well, us teachers ( like I used to be) know what's been going on over the last 10, 20, 30 years. And more. For a start, teachers often give their students rather better " estimated grades" than those students are likely to get. I know the various reasons why they do it .... but if I put in into print I'd probably get shot, or get buried alive in a shallow grave. And I don't think anybody is going "tell" either. So much for the Free Press. On top of that, there seems to be no realisation in the system that some subjects are much tougher than others. I'm not going to say which ... but you'll know. And then there's the historical background. Before Ofsted ( bloody Ofsted) got involved, many teachers, including many of mine, didn't care how well or badly their pupils did. Some of my teachers even told us they wanted some of us to fail, and that it " served us right". And most of them couldn't teach a cow to moo. Because there was no comeback ... failure was another stick to beat us with, in addition to the actual sticks. And then there's the "grade inflation" that's been going on for years.... so much so, that the system is becoming unsustainable ..... and once at University, more that half of all students are getting firsts. And that's within the context where around half of the cohort are going to University. Just think about that. Half of all pupils are going to University. Some sort of madness has gripped this land. And it's all about MONEY. Universities want their MONEY. ..and now, some illiterate nits can't even spell Lizard correctly .... |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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