For various complicated reasons , The Significant Otter and Me have been whizzing up and down the M6 for many miles. Twice. And what's more, there weren't many birds to see. But then, in a flash I invented a sort of "Extended Version" of all that "Vans" stuff. But first, here's the "original" version of VANS ... this one's got DEL on the side of it .... ...... it's the "ghost" of, for example, ClouDEd YELlow ... but that's a butterfly. ...... and it's also the "ghost" of Dung BeEtLe" .. but that's a beetle. ........ basically, it's what's left when the rest of the creature has blown away. Its "ghost" .... but ..can we find a "ghost bird" from DEL ? .... Various Eagles do the job .. Spotted Eagle Golden Eagle ..etc ! ... can you find any "not-eagle" DELs ? .... BUT I've written about all that before .... ..and now for the extension ! ..in front of us there was a lorry with AMBIENT written on the back. ...so ...an idea popped up into what's left of my brain .... I did AMB first ...... then I shifted along one place .... MBI and so on to BIE IEN ENT ..and I found birds for all of them ! .... and I "did" that same idea more or less over the whole journey. ..... and now, so can you. ( You might be wondering why I didn't get The Significant Otter to get photos of some of those lorries/vans ... well, I've lost my blasted camera. It was old and knackered, but then , so am I, but it worked. And the other reason is, she'd think I was mad). ..and now, the music ...
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Way back at post 931 I tried to bamboozle you all with my misprint-infested " find the hidden bird" puzzle from, of course, the legendary, universe-beating " Brattish Birds 2". It's at the other end of this handy link .. which includes what it is all about (?) 931-on-a-whim-b-released-his-grip-on-ednas-throat.html If you need examples , what about these two . ... " Gwendoline picked up a stick, not expecting it to be covered in horse-shit .!" " We need more fish, Agatha bellowed" So now, you'll be pleased to hear that there are two more pages of " that sort of thing" ..and this is page 2 of 3 ..... rather mipsprint-ifnected again ... ...... but that's Emmanuel Tripetappers for you .. I'm sure you got all of them, unruffled and still able to find two more birds in this very sentence ! But now, music .... my latest post on my French blog is about " songs to cheer you up" ..and here's one of them ... At least three different species of birds there .... hmm .... I might make something of that ... .... In the previous post I wrote this .... "After a mile or two I had seen nowt much "of note" ... but then I got Kestrel and Jay in the same field of view. Coo! When you've done everything and got lots of ticks and suchlike, you can run out of things to look forward to .. new quests etc. And getting two different species in the same FOV is an interesting, rather exasperating at times, quest. So that gave me a bit of happiness, without having to fly off to Africa or somewhere. And there's a humungous number of possible pairings within the UK list. Think about it ." ~~~~~~ Pause for thought ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ..... and when I got home, I worked out how many such "pairs" you could get...... I started like this ... If there were only 2 species of birds in the UK... we'll call them A and B.... ... there would be only 1 " two-species-in-the-field-of-view" possible.... AB but if there were 3 sp. ....... you could have 3 possible pairings ... AB AC BC and if there were 4 sp A B C D you could have 6 pairings ... AB AC AD BC BD CD But there's a lot more pairings ... loads more ... for you to try to get even in your own dinky garden with maybe a possible 80 or so species. And in your wider field of endeavour, there might be ... 120 ... 150 ... + different species to get paired up, and spotted by YOU. Let's imagine a local patch with ,say, 150 species available..... ........ then the number of possible different "pairs" you could get would be ... ........ go on, have a guess ...... ??????????????????????? These 2 pictures are only there to stop you seeing the "answer" too soon ... OK then ,150 species can be paired in 11175 ways ! "Getting" that lot would be a multi-lifetime task .... and unfortunately we've only got the one. But you'd never run short of new pairings to spot. And all within a relatively tiny radius. Think of all those thousands of polluting/dangerous/expensive hours of often-not-even-spotting-the-target-bird twitching ! Ouch. So ... go on then ...see if you can work it out for ,say, 80 species. The "formula" for it is very simple. As am I . Rock n' Roll !
There was a dinky article in today's paper about our need for a bit of "awe" occasionally. And then that Natalie Haynes was on the radio a bit later on talking about Aristotle and the need for "happiness." And then I went out for a big circular walk. Occasionally The Significant Otter gets a bit fed up with me .. I can't blame her really. After a mile or two I had seen nowt much "of note" ... but then I got Kestrel and Jay in the same field of view. Coo! When you've done everything and got lots of ticks and suchlike, you can run out of things to look forward to .. new quests etc. And getting two things in the same FOV is an interesting, rather exasperating at times, quest. So that gave me a bit of happiness, without having to fly off to Africa or somewhere. And there's a humungous number of possible pairings within the UK list. Think about it . And then , when I got home, I got a bit of awe as well. I've been trying to get Treecreeper in my dinky 3K thingy all year ... to no avail. But there I was, relaxing after my Big Circular Walk, when a bloody Treecreeper crept up the Eucalyptus, cool as anything, and when it got to a couple of metres from the top, it buggered off ! Coo! Awesome ... but why ? Well, in all our 7000 years of living here, there's only been 1 Treecreeper sighting, and that was about 20 years ago, in the depths of a freezing cold winter. So .. I was awed. Other adjectives are available ...chuffed, zonked, overthemoon, astonished, speechless..... So ... a spot of music now .... this is a right conker of a song .... . ..... and this is the Sing-along-with-Wir-sind-Helden-version .. Yesterday me and The Significant Otter had a stroll round "The Crumbles" ( not its real name) ...a place we've visited for decades. There's a big lake, lots of woodland, open fields, and an huge overgrown scrubby field/wetland crammed with dragonflies etc. Well, it was like that until three years ago, when we were astonished to find it changed dramatically. Swathes of mixed woodland had been hacked down, loads of understory removed, important orchid sites ruined, large expanses of apparently burnt-down vegetation .... all under the auspices of a well-known supposedly "Conservation Body." At the time we hoped that it would be allowed to recover, but it hasn't. If anything, it has got worse. We've no idea as to what they think they're doing. It's still sort of "OK" ... but a lot of it looks terrible. And there's no signs of it recovering and getting back to what it was. And all that "scorched earth" hasn't recovered at all. That's an example of the warped thinking of " management" by remote twerps who couldn't piss into a bucket. Oh, they've probably got degrees in " Conservation Studies" or whatever .... ... but anything ending in that word " studies" means it's a load of old cobblers. So ...what can us minnows do about it ? I can't help thinking that it's a battle we've already lost .... Pourras-tu le faire I'm lost Pourras-tu le dire I'm lost Tu dois tout essayer I'm lost Tu dois revenir I'm lost Tu dois voir plus loin I'm lost Tu dois revenir I'm lost Egaré en chemin I'm lost Tu verras le pire I'm lost Pour trouver le sud I'm lost Sans perdre le nord I'm lost Après les certitudes I'm lost Au-delà des bords I'm lost I'm lost but I'm not stranded yet I'm lost but I'm not stranded yet Dans les yeux des femmes I'm lost Dans la marie-jeanne I'm lost Dans la techno-cité I'm lost Pour manipulés I'm lost Grand combat de chairs I'm lost Colline enflammée I'm lost Dans l’ombre ou la lumière I'm lost Pôle halluciné I'm lost Pour courir ventre à terre I'm lost Brouillard et fumée I'm lost Consommer consumer I'm lost Recracher de l’air I'm lost Dans le dérisoire I'm lost Dans les accessoires I'm lost Dans le feu des possibles I'm lost Au cœur de la cible I'm lost Dans la paranoïa I'm lost Dans la schizophrénia I'm lost Un maniacopéra I'm lost Pharmacopérave I'm lost I'm lost but I'm not stranded yet I'm lost but I'm not stranded yet Entre les dérapages Entre les lignes d’orages Entre temps entre nous Et entre chien et loup Au maximum du voltage A peine est passé le message Au fil du rasoir Encore une fois c’est la vie qui s’entête Acharnée au-delà des images qu’on reflète Chacal, charogne, chaman, sachem Magie noire ou blanche inscrite à la sacem Des poumons d’or Belphégor Ici, maintenant, à la vie, à la mort N’oublie pas ton sourire pour ce soir si tu sors Un jury t’attend n’injurie pas le sort Entre les dérapages Entre les lignes d’orages Entre temps entre nous Et entre chien et loup Au maximum du voltage A peine est passé le message Au fil du rasoir Dans les corridors I'm lost Sur les baies vitrées I'm lost Des insectes écrasés I'm lost Qui cherchaient de l’or I'm lost Dans les ministères I'm lost Dans les monastères I'm lost Dans les avalanches I'm lost Au bout de la planche I'm lost Des combats d’autorité I'm lost Des conflits d’intérêts I'm lost Des types ignifugés I'm lost Veulent ma fusée I'm lost Des désenchanteurs I'm lost Un train à quelle heure I'm lost Des pirates des corsaires I'm lost Sans aucun repaire I'm lost Tu dois voir plus loin I'm lost Tu dois revenir I'm lost Tu dois tout essayer I'm lost Tu dois devenir I'm lost I'm lost but I'm not stranded yet I'm lost but I'm not stranded yet
This ancient drawing of mine doesn't represent what's in this article ... but it looks nice. Not so far from my dinky house, and well within the 3K, is The Flood. And in recent days, it has turned up some good stuff. And yesterday it had 2 Little Stints, 3 Curlew Sands, 3 Ruffs and 29+ Snipes. Along with the usual more ordinary stuff. The mix varied over the day. Snipes have had a rocky time since those two hard winters a decade ago .... they were wiped out almost completely for a couple of years, and have recovered very very slowly. That's the problem when you're a bird that relies upon sticking your long beak into sludgy mud. When it freezes up, you're stuffed. At Grumbling Stumps "they" lost all their Bitterns that way, but they didn't mention it so as not to put off the hordes of people who go there hoping to see one. After those two fierce winters I didn't hear or see one there for years ... and they've only recently made some sort of a comeback. The Bearded Tits vanished as well. They rely a lot on the fallen seeds for their winter food, and when the water and the mud all freezes they're stuffed. Strangely, it all more or less happened at the same time as that wonderful financial collapse hit us. And just as we were all hoping that we were about to crawl out of 10 years of austerity, we're going to collapse into another financial black hole. Everything is connected ! So .. a bit of temporary happiness, and quite a lot of gloomy stuff. But ... it's not dark yet ... Later in the day, I "got" a blasted Kingfisher at last... a male.
And about time too. Woo ! We're half-way through Sept 2020, and already the Common Gull counts are shooting upwards. And here's the current results .... in close-up ... with the Common Gull numbers plotted against the date. We seem to be witnessing an exponential World-Beating Common Gull Population Explosion .... in a few weeks' time I'll need a huge bit of graph paper ... mind you, I could plot it on a logarithmic scale instead to save the world from a disastrous Global Graph Paper Shortage. Anyway, the main finding from the 3rd dot is that there was probably just 1 Common Gull there on Sept 0th. I was going to show you the " Percentage of CGs " and the " CG numbers v Flock Size" graphs as well but I don't want you to get over-excited. So, moving on, Tweet of the Day was the Red-Backed Shrike, a bird which I was very late "getting". By the time I'd got a car and could whizz around Norfolk/Suffolk like mad, they'd started to disappear ... bloody typical. What with that and the precipitous " Great Turtle Dove Decline" we have obviously lived through tumultuous times. You can't help wondering if those "Turtlers" morphed into Little Egrets due to all those Nuclear Power Stations and the like. I bet if you drew a graph of Little Egret Expansion against Turtle Dove Decline you would spot a trend, so obviously that would mean that one has caused the other. And talking of life-forms, in't paper yesterday-ish there was a preposterous article about the possibility of life-forms in the Venusian Atmosphere !! Er...NO. The Venusian Atmosphere is one of the most hostile environments in the galaxy ! And anyway, where's all the infrastructure ... shops, bird feeders, Graph paper...ZILCH. In these times of potential graph-paper shortages ( and the recent bog-roll collapse) we've got to stay alert and not believe in any old claptrap ..... So .... the music ... Florence and the Machine ....... " Rabbit Heart" I found a ladybird that I couldn't put a name to a few days ago ...and so I started the hunt for my terrific Ladybird book which, of course, I couldn't find ... and I still haven't. I've even looked for it on Amazon ... zilch, nowt, dim byd, nicht ..and so on. BUT ...I did find something .. an ancient copy of "Twitching" magazine ...Vol 1, #11.. older readers might remember it .... after that first year (1987) it turned into "Birding World." Then that folded Jan 2014. And in that " dug-up-from-the-distant-past" slim volume was an excellent article by one Michael Williams .. it's so good, I wish I'd written it..... read on, dear readers .... Naturally, I have written quite a bit on here about Dipping ...and "Fear of Dipping." Nowadays, I don't do proper twitching .... because it hurts too much if I don't see "it". Just you wait till you get old .... you'll probably start to feel the same. Waiting around to die.................. Sometimes I don't know where
This stony road is taking me Sometimes I don't know the reason why So I guess I'll keep gambling Lots of booze and lots of rambling Well, it's easier than just waiting around to die Well, one time, friends I had a ma, I even had a pa He beat her with a belt once 'cause she cried She told him to take care of me And headed down to Tennessee Well, it's easier than just waiting around to die Then I became of age And I found a girl in a Tuscaloosa bar She cleaned me out and she hit it on the sly Well, I tried to kill the pain I bought some wine, I hopped a train Well, it was easier than just waiting around to die Then a friend said he knew Where some easy money was We robbed a man and brother, did we fly But the posse caught up with me And drugged me back to Muskogee And now it's two long years, just waiting around to die Now I'm out of prison And I got me a friend at last He don't steal or cheat or drink or lie His name is Codeine And he's the nicest thing I've seen And together, we're gonna wait around to die Here's some more of those " what birds are these" (that I cleverly drew) from the by now "World Syndicated " Brattish Birds 2" ..some easy-peasy, some tricksy-wicksy ....... and thinking about all those birds ... all those pretty things ... I picked this .. Right at the start of this rambling load of old shite I wrote a few posts about "the perils of birding ...and I was intending to write about getting stuck in the mud ...but never got round to it due to the lack of a suitable picture to go with it. OK ..it probably led to the unnecessary deaths of a few people who hadn't read my non-existent post, but there we go. Nobody's perfect. But at last, this picture hove into view....he's made a big mistake there. If only i had written this next thing earlier ! SO ... you are foolishly walking over the seaside mud to try to get a bit closer to a bird of some sort or other. And you stop to get a closer look through your nockers ( don't blame me ... that's an Oddie-ism) and after a few minutes you find you've sunk into the mud somewhat and when you try to haul your ugly spindly legs out of it they won't budge. The more you thrash about the deeper you sink. So stop it. Your weight is pushing you deeper and deeper in. Whatever you do, stop struggling before it gets beyond your knees. So ... YOU LIE DOWN ON YOUR BACK. ( Which you can't do if your knees are buried too) That way you don't sink in any more .... which is a good start. Phew !! So now, with all that weight no longer getting you into more of a hole..... ... you can slowly and carefully wiggle the mud-bound-bits up and out .... and then you can start dragging your way back ..still horizontally to spread your weight so you don't sink any more.... and you're saved ! SORTED And here's a strange thing ... whenever there's a bit in the paper about some local nits getting rescued from the mud ... they never tell you what to do ... like I've just done. Strange ... but true. And now, having potentially saved lots of future lives .... the music. I've put this song on here a few times ... it has birding relevance for a start, but it takes on a different complexion now you've read today's helpful hint ... I roll the window down And then begin to breathe in The darkest country road And the strong scent of evergreen From the passenger seat as You are driving me home Then looking upwards I strain my eyes and try To tell the difference between Shooting stars and satellites From the passenger seat as You are driving me home "Do they collide?" I ask, and you smile With my feet on the dash The world doesn't matter When you feel embarrassed Then, I'll be your pride If you need directions Then, I'll be the guide For all time For all time Here's links to those " previous helpful hints" 19-top-birding-hazards-1-tsunamis.html 36-birding-hazards-2-hypothermia.html 398-hilbre-100-ways-to-read-your-tide-table-wrongly.html 583-the-hazards-of-birding-lyme-disease.html |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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