Here's a Scilly drawing for you to admire .............. ( or is it silly?) As both of my readers know, I've not been able to hear Treecreepers/Swifts/Crests and various other high-pitched birds for several years. And what a sad loss it is. SO ... here's a new birding challenge that might make you think.... Spend a couple of hours of birding ..... BUT .... have your mp3 player or whatever pumping LOUD MUSIC into your so-called brain, thereby only being able to track down and/or identify them by sight only. Ouch! Crumbs !! Calamity !!! Jiggers !!!! Now I reckon that would be a bit of an eye-opener for most of you lot ..... literally ! BUT ... can I come up with a bit of relevant music .... oh yes ...................
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Over the last few articles I've shown you what sort of birds are about in the four seasons. The truth is, they were laughably duff ! But also entertaining. And by a remarkable coincidence, a neighbour gave me a stack of Ladybird books .... not about ladybirds though. She's obviously sussed out my reading age. But , in amongst them, were these .... I bet you'll wish you had them ..... I wish I'd had them years ago But did not , I'm sad to say There's loads in there I didn't know Oh Weh! Oh Weh ! O Weh! ( That's the German for Oh Dear ! Oh Dear ! Oh Dear !) .....and here's a beautiful Philipp Poisel song .... Mit jedem deiner Fehler" As I sit here in my ultra-neat ( NOT) "office" (NOT) I am surrounded by hundreds ( and hundreds) of books. And downstairs there's hundreds more. And a fair % of them are about birds. I bet every country in the wide world has bird books. Even Lithuania ! I brought two back from there ..... So .... I reckon that bird books are revered all over the world ! Even Afghanistan has them ...... as I showed you a few posts ago. And they aren't just identification manuals. There's all sorts ... here's a small selection of the stuff that's available ... Local birding hotspot lists Books of bird-related funny stories Books about World Birding Trips County guides. Beginner's books Gripping Yarns . Books based on bird population studies. ...or bird physiology ... or bird migration studies Books of distribution maps. Books about a particular group of birds .. flamingos/parrots/penguins/hummingbirds/tits.. Bird physiology Big bird races ........ day counts ........ whole-year marathons Just one person's lifetime experiences. Then there's my terrific, but sadly unpublished " Birds of the Aldcliffe Canal" Only 4 copies of it exist. Unfortunately, only 1 copy of me exists. Then there's my two magazine-format home-made " Brattish Birds 1 & 2. They're very rare indeed. I must get round to doing a third one. That's Literacy In Action that is. I was quite pleased with the back covers of those ... well worth a look ... I'm sure you've all done "that sort of thing" ..and if not, why not have a go. So .... the music ... " Read it in books" ..... Then. of course, there's all of this massive blog I'm writing right now.
I spotted this Birding Boffin a day or two ago .. I was strolling along a rather narrow path at Grumbling Stumps when all of a suddy this bloke loomed into view ... and he was followed by a huge, narrow-path-filling conglomeration of 20+ anoraked shufflers who filled the aforementioned narrow path in a " No Social Distancing At All" sort of way. And I thought ..any minute now he'll tell them to move over a bit ... but no .... they just barged on, and I (me) had to sidestep sharpish into the reed-bed, which is a lovely environment for birds but not for me.... my footwear rapidly filled with water in a non-reverse-able sort of way. ... and they were all totally silent, as if they were going to a funeral. ( I've got quite a list of Celebrity Birders .... I was once very startled to encounter Lee Evans , near-naked as he often is, and he was rather aggressive for some reason or other. I think he was blaming me for somehow shooing away some rare bird or other, which was a bit preposterous seeing as I had only just got out of the car. ) Anyway, I knew something that that Celebrity Birder didn't know ... him and his gloomy entourage were going to see nowt ! Because the pools were all dry as dust ! And almost birdless !! 1 Heron. That's about it. Ha ! More Good News .... when I got back to the cafe, THERE WAS NO SIGN OF DODGY ! I was so chuffed that I had a Celebratory Magnum to celebrate his absence. So .. some appropriate music ...... well, not really ...... I just like this punchy song..... Depuis trois quarts d´heure je dérive en apesanteur
Depuis trois quarts d´heure je gravite autour de ton cœur [Refrain] : Je suis en orbite autour de ton égo-centrite Comme un satellite je navigue autour de ton mythe Je vole comme une étoile mais tu m´affoles diagonale Et je m´envole comme une étoile mais tu m´affoles diagonale Depuis trois quarts d´heure le retour s´est fait en douceur A des années-lumière et souvent la tête à l´envers [Refrain] Je vole comme une étoile mais tu m´affoles diagonale Si tu t´envoles comme une étoile si tu décolles diagonale Je vole comme une étoile mais tu m´affoles diagonale Et je m´envole comme une étoile mais tu m´affoles diagonale At last ... the final installment of "the four seasons" and their birds. Each month also has a special bit of poetry ..even if it is a bit duff ! You'll probably want to have a look at the other 3 chunks of seasonal sludge first ... ... you might be missing a vital bit of information !? 1113-your-guide-to-the-seasons-well-14-of-them.html 1115-your-guide-to-the-seasons-part-2.html 1117-some-more-stuff-about-the-seasons.html OCTOBER Thrush, skylark, hedge sparrow, wren and robin sing. Reed warbler, whitethroat, and yellow wagtail depart. Fieldfares arrive. Rooks return to their nest trees. Starlings, blue tits and robins again visit our gardens. Every joy is gain. And again is gain however small. NOVEMBER Robin and missel thrush still sing, the skylark may be heard occasionally. Starlings chatter in the garden. Titmice become very bold. Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they ? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too. While barred clouds bloom the soft dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, born aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives and dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from the hilly bourn Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies." DECEMBER Missel-thrush, robin and skylark sing occasionally. Titmice, robins, starlings, blackbirds, chaffinches, visit gardens for scraps. "........ The lark sings on, the sun, Closing his benediction Sinks, and the darkening air Thrills with a sense of the triumphant night .... Night, with her train of stars." It seems to me that this twit who wrote all that only knows about 8 birds. He's obsessed with "missel thrushes" for some unknown reason. Anyway, we can put aside all that "seasonal sludge" and hear a bit od kick-ass music .... Soundso, by the way, is pronounced "Zo-unt-zo" in your actual German. Sie wissen genau wer du bist
Du bist uns so einer Sie sagen es so wie es ist So gut kennt dich keiner Und zwar bist du vom Wesen soundso Soundso so irgendwie Verstehen sie dich, das macht sie froh So einer ändert sich nie [Chorus:] Aber nichts davon bestimmt dich, weißt du Nichts davon verglimmt nicht mit der Zeit Nur du bestimmt nicht, weißt du Nichts davon, ist wirklich nichts davon Soundso und sowieso bleibt nichts davon Soundso und sowieso ist nichts davon Soundso Glaub mir nichts davon bist du Soundso warst du schon immer Genauso, nur kleiner Im Alter wird sowas nur schlimmer Genauso, nur alleiner Wie gut wenn man beliebt wird, wie man ist Soundso, und so allein So wie du warst, so wie du bist Bist das du, musst du das sein? [Chorus] Dein Vater ist froh, Weil er weiß, Du bist soundso! Und Mutter ist froh, Weil sie weiß, Du bist soundso! Dein Haustier ist froh, Weil es weiß, Du bist soundso! Dein Lehrer ist froh, Weil er weiß, Du bist soundso! Die Freunde sind froh, Alles klar, Du bist soundso! Auf Arbeit alle froh, Alles klar, Du bist soundso! Zuhause alle froh, Alles klar, Alles soundso! Du gehst K.O., Weil du weißt, Du bist soundso! (5x) Wirklich nichts davon... Soundso und sowieso Bleibt nichts davon! Soundso und sowieso Ist nichts davon! Soundso glaub mir nichts davon... bist du! If you want to know what that thing at the top was, here's the link to it .... 313-my-very-own-ufo.html We went to N. Ireland for a few days on the Stranraer-Belfast Stena Line boat. The TSO is Belfast Born & Bred so we go there every year. What fun we had during the Troubles ... the best bit was when we watched a huge shoot-out .... the MOB were all on the far side of the road, and the army were cowering in our front garden. The whole shooting match lasted about 40 minutes, and I've still got a few cartridges as a souvenir of those happy, carefree days But moving on..... over the first day of driving miles and miles and miles then Birding from-the-Boat and 2 days of Birding Around Belfast I got 69 species and then did the whole caboodle again in reverse order..... urgh. 69 isn't that bad considering that most of our travelling was to see all the TSOs Friends-And-Relations ... spread out all over the place. Strangford Loch is a mirror-image of Belfast Loch... and both are excellent for birds ... the ones in the water, and the birds on the surrounding land. We also revisited the most "easterly" point on the mainland ... and the row of houses there were very swish, with huge picture mega-windows ...and all but one of them had dirty great jellyscopes inside. What sort of sad-cake didn't ? We've been to the most northerly and easterly and westerly AND southerly bits as well. Ubiquitous ..that's us. Here's one odd thing .... spotting birds from the boat at the big windows, quite a few birds were right close by the boat at times ... and I was seeing them from directly above. And with some of them it was quite tricky to ID them ... I could only see their backs. You might remember an "invented "book that I wrote about " Birds from Above" .. it would have come in handy. I'll see if I can find it ... 114-how-i-lost-my-first-pair-of-binoculars.html ( A sad story) 133-the-loch-erne-mystery-bird.html (A silly story) 532-belfast-based-birding.html ( An absence) I haven't found the "Birds From Above" story yet ... maybe I never got round to writing it. My dinky mp3 player is stacked up with German music at the moment .... ... and this beautiful song is one of them ... Echolot ... ... and ... it has the words ..so you can sing along with it.... ... and remember it for the rest of your life !! Here's a few snaps ... well, a measly 4 .. my camera is crap .....
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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