When I was in Lithuania .. or "Through the Baltic States by Trolleybus." I've often rambled on about " when I was in Lithuania" Mainly because it's about the only bit of "one-upmanship" I've got. Even Stodgy has been known to express a dinky bit of enviousness. And I've got a longer Lithuanian list than most Flint-based birders ! Oh yes. So ..here's the first part of "the thing I wrote for the local bird club magazine." In 2004 I went to Lithuania for a week. It wasn't even a birdwatching trip, in fact I wasn't able to get very much birding done at all. Despite this, everyone must be fed up with my gripping accounts of this trip, because just about any sighting since has been greeted with the phrase "I've seen them in Lithuania." I suppose the real reasons for my overwhelming need to ramble on about this excursion are.... [a] It was my first trip abroad ( OK, I had been to Boulogne for 2 hours). [b] I didn't really expect to go at all. [c] I flew in an aeroplane for the first time ( four of them in fact.) [d] I had no idea what to expect ( very little on the web about Lithuania) [e] I ramble on about everything anyway. So how did it all start ? Sometime in September 2003 someone came into the office and said " Who wants to go to a conference in Lithuania ?" Whereupon my colleague said " put his name down" ..referring to me. I'm not sure what his motive was .... but anyhow, I put my name down and forgot all about it ... these sorts of thing don't happen to me, do they ? Months and months later a form arrived on my desk for me to explain why I wanted to go to a conference in Lithuania. Of course, I couldn't tell the truth, i.e. that I wanted to see some interesting birds, so I put down a lot of waffle, my keenness to visit Europe, and to eat lots of salty food, be terrified by beefy blokes with beefy dogs etc. In short, it was enough to get me on the (free) plane. So it was on the morning of June 21st 2004 Mike Duke ( known throughout the week as Mike Duck due to a misprinted name-badge) and me whooshed into the sky in a HGJ ( Honking Great Jet) from Manchester Airport. I got a tick straight away as a superb decompression cloud formed over the wing for, oooh, about 0.8 seconds giving a convincing and impressive demonstration of the gas equations and Bernouilli's Theorem. Too ephemeral for the disposable camera though, so it's an unsubstantiated single-observer sighting. If you are worried about flying, become a physicist and you'll love every minute..... Wooooooooooo !! Vertiginous or what ! That's part one.... hey, there might be some birds on part 2. I learned 2 Lithuanian words while I was there ...and the first, and most important one was " shooooaah" = dog. Music time... Ben Gibbard of DCFC/The Postal Service + Jenny Lewis ... " Nothing Better" .. ultra-live ! I am thinking it's a sign
That the freckles in our eyes Are mirror images and When we kiss they're perfectly aligned And I have to speculate That God himself did make us into Corresponding shapes like puzzles pieces From the clay True, it may seem like a stretch But it's thoughts like this That catch my troubled head When you're away, when I am missing you to death When you were out there on the road For several weeks of shows And when you scan the radio I hope this song will guide you home They will see us waving from such great heights "Come down now, " they'll say But everything looks perfect from far away "Come down now, " but we'll stay I've tried my best to leave This all on your machine But the persistent beat Sounded thin upon listening That frankly will not fly You will hear the shrillest highs And lowest lows with the windows down When this is guiding you home They will see us waving from such great heights "Come down now, " they'll say But everything looks perfect from far away "Come down now, " but we'll say...
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In each and every Cormorant, a Coot is locked inside And a Rhea's inside the Lady Amherst's Pheasant. Each Ashy-Headed Wagtail hosts a Shag, you'll be surprised, And an Owl inside a Yellow Wagtail's sure to be unpleasant ! Meanwhile, each Booted Warbler is fostering a Teal You hardly would believe it, but it's easy to conceal. And the Black-Winged Pratincole hosts an unexpected Kite And the hidden Rail in the Bar-Tailed Lark must be a shocking sight. That Cormorant above, you'll be amazed to hear Also hosts a Moa, her innards must be queer. And Serins can be found inside of all Siberian Thrushes Who, when photographers gather round, must wonder what the fuss is. Yellow-Browed and Yellow-Breasted Buntings , as it goes, Being so very very much alike from heads to toes, Have got a tiny Wren concealed inside 'em ... They share their ghosts, and know just how to hide 'em Athene noctua ,the Little Owl, Has a hen within , a tiny little soul, And Aquatic Warblers, they contain a Quail An elusive bird, which barely has a tail. I hope this arcane knowledge has impressed If not, at least I know I've done my best. White-winged Black Tern will end our little list But you must find what's in it, I insist ! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Beware ... the "hidden bird" inside the WWBT appears after the song lyrics... and a big and irrelevant gull.... I hope you enjoyed all that ... I certainly enjoyed writing it. I expect you'll want more ... but I say ... for now ... Ain't that enough ? If you can I wish you would Only if you feel you should Bring your loving over All adds up with circumstance All stood up with taking stands Bring your loving over Highlights glisten Silence listens Days that found you Embrace that found you Here is a sunrise. Ain't that enough True as a clear sky, ain't that enough Toy town feelings here to remind you Summers in the city do what you gotta do Time can only make demands Fill it up with grains of sand Bring your loving over Highlights glisten Silence listens Days that found you Embrace that found you Here is a sunrise. Ain't that enough True as a clear sky, ain't that enough Toy town feelings here to remind you Summers in the city do what you gotta do Toy town feelings whose gonna argue Summers in the city Summers in the city If you can I wish you would Only if you feel you should Bring your loving over All adds up with circumstance All stood up with taking stands Bring your loving over Highlights glisten Silence listens Days that found you Embrace that found you Here is a sunrise. Ain't that enough True as a clear sky, ain't that enough Toy town feelings here to remind you Summers in the city do what you gotta do Time can only make demands Fill it up with grains of sand Bring your loving over Highlights glisten Silence listens Days that found you Embrace that found you Here is a sunrise. Ain't that enough True as a clear sky, ain't that enough Toy town feelings here to remind you Summers in the city do what you gotta do Toy town feelings whose gonna argue Summers in the city Summers in the city White-winged Black Tern
There I was, dogless, as I have been for many months now, and therefore able to "do" the long but interesting circuit around Grumbling Stumps, when I saw in the distance a red/black/silvery-beaked thing lying in the middle of the road .... about the size of a goldfinch. I thought it was a goldfinch at first, but when I got closer and picked it up, sure enough, it wasn't..... what do you make of it ... ? I must apologise for the crapsnaps .... as we call them round at our house .... my proper camera is sulking at the moment, so I had to use the crapulous "Handykamera" (Handy = mobile phone in German) which has ± 1 pixel . Here's a handy ( no pun intended) picture to give you time to think before I tell you what it is ... Well, it's the decapitated head of a pheasant .... decapitated very neatly too. That's my finger and thumb holding it aloft, and once you realise it's just the head, you can see the start-of-the-neck feathers sticking out at the back. So there you are. And after I'd got round the walk, very pleasant it was too, even though I didn't see the target bird, and there was Stodgy ... who was actually, by his standards, quite pleasant. Wow. He still regards me as a heap of shit, but he doesn't mention it quite so often. Heap of Mediocrity was a far as he went. I can cope with that. And then I went home. And on the way I listened to this a few times over from an ancient cassette tape..... what a gorgeous song .... Hunderttausend Typen wach" That's a nifty, dual-purpose logo that is. AKU . I saw it yesterday on the side of a whizzing-past van. I didn't get a photo of it, but I found it this morning on't net. Not only is it a tricky-to-work-out anagram of a bird. (Have you got it yet ?) But .. it's also the "ghost" of another bird. I've written a lot about ghostbirds lately But ... no doubt some of you haven't read about them.... so I'll explain. Again. This is about the 18th "different" explanation I've done ... Let's take as our example the lowly BLACKBIRD . But ..it's a dying BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD bits of it are disappearing ! BLACKBIRD oh dear ..they're fading away ! BLACKBIRD crumbs... whatever next ? B A D ... BAD is a ghost of Blackbird !! It's not the only one ... look BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD K I D KID is another ghost of Blackbird. One more .... BLACKBIRD LAIR is yet another ! There's loads and loads of them. Well, now you know all about ghostbirds ! So .... AKU is not only an anagram of a bird, is also the "ghost" of another bird as well. As I mentioned earlier BUT .... what is that bird ? That's your challenge for today. Well, the next 5 minutes anyway. Here's a handy picture or two to stop you seeing what it is too soon ... mind you, there's probably others. As the other letters fade away, the ghost of Black-Headed Bunting appears ! BLACK-HEADED BUNTING BLACK-HEADED BUNTING BLACK-HEADED BUNTING BLACK-HEADED BUNTING A K U Simples ! Whenever you see a logo, or the 3-letter bit of a number plate, see if it's the ghost of a bird. The only "in-car" game worth playing. There's been a bit of a "tiff" about an owl statue ... the Serbian town of Kikinda is famous for its Long-eared Owls, and birders flock there to see them .. read on .... but there's been a bit of "controversy".... ... The statue's creator, Jovan Blat, told Serbian newspaper Vecernje Novosti that he was prepared to make a new sculpture in light of the criticism. [ aha ... there's been "criticism" !! ] He said the statue was not intended to be "a copy" of an owl, but rather a "stylised sculpture" with "an elongated, tubular body.” "It is clear... that everyone does not understand contemporary art," he said, while admitting he may have "some technical limitations". [ actually, it's not the "accuracy" of it that people have complained about ] [ .. nor his "technical limitations" ] Bird watcher Dragan Simic said the statue did not discourage him from visiting. "Kikinda is now famous for its owls... across Europe, even around the world... the bird-watchers are very active, numerous and loyal tourists," he said. [ What could possibly be wrong with this statue ? We need to know !] Perhaps, dear readers all, you're ready to take a look at the statue now ... .............. unless you're of a "nervous disposition" ! .. it's the one on the right ... .. if you can't quite see the problem, just cover up the"ears" with your hand. ... that's better ... or rather, worse. A town in Serbia famed for hosting the world's largest population of roosting long-eared owls is facing protests from locals over the erection of a statue of the bird that critics say resembles a phallus. The 8ft terracotta sculpture was created to celebrate Kikinda’s status as a bird-watching hub. But locals in Kikinda are pushing for its removal, arguing its elongated shape and minimalist features are obscene. The original Facebook post unveiling the statue triggered widespread ridicule. One protester said in a Facebook post: “Freud could say something about this statue, it looks so much like a phallus.” "This is great," wrote another. "I just can't figure out what it reminds me of." “This (statue) represents something very masculine, but not an owl,” one said on Twitter. All age groups seem to have been affected .... ......and there has been some "panic in the streets" ... Mind you, I've seen worse. I suppose I'm supposed to find some "appropriate music" to go with this ridiculous story. It's not going to be easy....... It didn't feel like Sunday
It didn't feel like June When he met his silent partner In that lonely corner room That overlooked the marquee Of the plaza all-adult And he was not lookin' for romance Just someone he could trust And it wasn't no way to carry on It wasn't no way to live But he could up with it for a little while He was working on something big Speedball rang the night desk Said "Send me up a drink" The night clerk said "It's sunday man Wait a minute, let me think There's a little place outside of town Might still have some wine" Speedball said "Forget it man Can I have an outside line?" And it wasn't no way to carry on It wasn't no way to live But he could up with it for a little while He was working on something big It was Monday when the day maids Found the still made bed All except the pillows That lay stacked up At the head And one said "I know I've seen his face I wonder who he is" The other said "Probably Just another clown Working on something big." And it wasn't no way to carry on It wasn't no way to live But he could up with it for a little while He was working on something big By the way, the Leonid meteor shower is supposed to be on show tonight Keen though I am on these sort of things, I've never seen a reasonably impressive shower. Oh, I've tried ! How I've tried, out there for hours on freezing cold winter nights. I've seen plenty of individual meteors . But nothing that could be called " spectacular." Bah ! I was out in the back garden early yesterday morning hoping for a few flyovers ... without any notable success ...and I'm still hoping to hear owls .. there's hardly been any all year, which is a drastic and sad thing. But I did get a great view of Venus low in the East.. bang in the middle there. And to the right of it, v.v.v.v.v.v faint indeed,just over half-way to the roofs on the right, is Spica. You can only just pick it out as a v pale disc. You could try blowing it up ... hold down the CTRL key and swizzle the mouse wheel. You can usually tell a planet from a star, because the light from stars tends to twinkle, but the light from planets doesn't. They shine steadily. But why ? Well, starlight has come a hell of a long way from a tiny tiny point over a hell of a long time, and only maybe a few photons are arriving per second, and they have to get past dust clouds in space, and then they have to slog all the way through our atmosphere which varies in temperature and density and mucks up their direction of travel, woggling them about, and maybe only 1 of them will hit your retina one second, and then 3, and then none, and then 5 ...so the starlight varies .... that's the twinkling. But planets ... well for a start, they loom much larger in the sky, and are much much much closer, so a lot more photons get launched towards us, for a much much much shorter distance, so there's far fewer dusticles* in the way, a lot lot lot less, and even though they get woggled around in the atmosphere there's so many that still loads and loads of them hit your retina every second, drowning out any slight variations in the number of photons per second. So they don't seem to twinkle. Sorry about all the technical terms there ! Dusticles!! When I was younger and keener and didn't feel the cold so much, I would get out there really early to get stuff on my house/3K/Year list. Mipits, redpolls, siskins, the odd brambling, the occasional Tree sparrow, wagtails, thrushes etc . I often had to be dragged back into the house by my ankles and dumped in front of the gas fire to bring me back to life.Those bloody steps are right bumpy as well. No wonder I've aged prematurely. I did zip down to the saltmarsh after that, but once again, all I got was a few Skylarks... v. quiet. On the plus side, I got a few chunks of firewood. No sign of those Egyptian geese though. Also, I couldn't find the recently-reported Barnacle amongst the 300 or so Canadas. It's all go you know. So there you are then .. a planet, a bit of highly technical stuff, using all the latest scientific vocabulary, then a bit of unsuccessful vismigging. But sometimes, out there all on my own, I feel a bit like a one man rock 'n 'roll band ..... cue the music ..... Venus - Venus passed between us and the Suhe 8th of this month in the east before sunrise5% - which is why the bri I bet you'd like to see my specially invented Vismigophone ! It's been on here twice before, but I sort of can't help wanting to show you it again ... it bounces the tweets the birdicles make into your ears..... * Dusticles ... a new word invented by me ... Dust Particles ! Also notice the special binicles vismiggers use. Go on, see if you can sort out the leaves from the Starlings !! This, by the way, is a notable "Waxwing tree" in the right sort of winters. I've already bunged quite a bit of birding slang on here .... boobtuber, Aztec, duckmugger, Pimp and many others. We'll look at them first ... then some new ones In only the 4th post we had this lot .... GWIBBERS ... these are birders who have itchy feet ... they get to rarity 1 for the day, and only look at it for 17 seconds and they're chivvying everyone in their gang to get on to the next one. I know a good few of these. And so do you most probably. It comes from the excellent Welsh word " gwib" .. a jaunt, a "wander." DUCKMUGGERS .. these are people...we won't dignify them with any more advanced term ... who have an over-vivid imagination, bird-wise. They see a distant cormorant, and report it as an albatross. They read somewhere that a local wood contains Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers and the very first bird they see is a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker .. despite the fact that they've not been seen there for 17 years. We all know some of those. It comes from the Welsh verb dychmygu .. to imagine. Isn't this blog educational folks ! DRUGDUBBER .. they don't believe anything you've seen. I saw a Rosefinch at Salthouse on Tuesday ... Rubbish ... it was probably a Linnet you bloody halfwit. It's from the Welsh adjective drwgdybus .. suspicious. Right .. onto some non-Welsh ones now ... I'm quite proud of some of these .. AZTEC ... an Aztec is a person who only ever looks at bird through his/her bloody huge camera lens. This habit has got to the point where there are notices in some hides asking these bloody Aztecs not to hog the front seats for hours on end. Oh yes. They don't take any notice of the notices though. The term comes, of course, from wonderful Scottish band Aztec Camera .. BOOBTUBER ... you all know these ...they're people who have loads of birding equipment, posh telescopes, whizzo bins, all the gear, but haven't got a bloody clue. This can lead to major-league duckmugging. They've got their "tubes" ..telescopes, bins... but they're always getting it wrong ... the boobs. Simple. BEE .. I once came across an acquaintance of mine, whom I had not seen for ages, sitting on an upturned boat on St. Mary's. I've hardly ever seen him birding where he actually lives. He "Birds Everywhere Else" ..he's a BEE. SIBLING ... this is an easy one.. you know those people that, whenever you say you've seen something, they've seen it before you. I saw a Gannet fly over my house yesterday... oh, I saw it 10 minutes before from my yacht.... anyways, they're SIBlings ... Seen It Before you. TOE-RAGS .... similar sort of thing ..except that when you see something, they've seen two. Hey, there was a Bluethroat on the dunes yesterday .. oh, I saw two actually. Two Of Everything. LOVELY ... and here's more from post 58 ... KIKI ... someone who encroaches on your patch .... it's from Kiki in Hector's House... she's always looking over the wall into his garden and he doesn't like it. She uses a ladder ! That's a liberty that is. Laughably, she's a weather forecaster ! MINTY ... someone who likes big, gaudy birds, and doesn't think much of warblers etc. It comes, I believe, from Robert Smith's song "Like Cockatoos" because Robert = Trebor backwards ..Trebor Mints. Obvious really. SLOB .... a twitcher/globe-trotter ... anyone who Sees Lots Of Birds. MOZZER .. a term of respect for a birder who is an all-round naturalist and knows about flowers, moths etc. Named after top Fylde birder Morris Jones .... Mozzer is a northern version of Morris. PIMP ... a sort of mini-Kiki ... they Peek Into My Patch. KIRBY ... a really good bird ... a "gripper" ( Kirby Grips ... if you remember them. ) KERBY ... a birder who does most of their birding from a parked car ... at the kerb. Easily confused with the similar-sounding Kirby. NELSON .. a birder who can't really see anything through their scope but pretends they can. Admiral Nelson famously had one useless eye. TELLY .. from Telly Savalas. A birder who closes the other eye when using a scope ... Mr. Savalas had an eye-patch. .. and since then I've come across a few more ...... from, as they say, various sources ... TWT ...... Twit with Telescope. Plenty of those about. You go "toot toot" when you see one in the distance. ( It doesn't work in Welsh ... twt = smart, neat ... ) NOB ....... Lots of those too . . "No Obvious Brain" SURFER .... Survey Fanatic ( I stopped being one of them before the next stage ) SILVER SURFER .... Doddery old survey fanatic. BWNKER .......... Birder with Noisy Kids ( Grrrr)( I was one of them for years) GROB .............. Grey Rug, Old Bins ..... that fits me pretty well.( Rug=Hair) SWELL ... Shithead with extremely long lens ! Oh, there's millions of them !! TWBI ...... Twit who birds indoors. Usually pronounced "tubby." NED ........ NEarly 500. ( D = 500 in Latin) ( Their UK list, that is, not their age) NESH ....... NEarly Six Hundred. CAMP ... this is " Chris-And-Michaela-Prattle" meaning a load of icky garbage ! You all know what I mean .... "cheeky chipmunks" etc. "Camping" = talking like them. Well, you're totally clued up now.. I found this when I was looking for more Roy Harper songs .... it's Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel singing " Another Day" surely one of the saddest love songs ever ..... The kettle's on, the sun has gone
Another day She offers me Tibetan tea on a flower tray She's at the door, she wants to score She dearly needs to say I loved you a long time ago Where the winds own forget-me- nots blow But I just couldn't let myself go Not knowing what on earth there was to know. But I wish that I had 'cause I need you so bad I should have had one of your children. And across the room inside a tomb A chance is waxed and wanes The night is young, why are we so hung up In each others chains I must make her, I must take her While the dove domains and feel the juice run as she flies Run my winds under her sighs As the flames of eternity rise To lick us with the first born lash of dawn. Oh really my dear I can't see what we fear Sat here with ourselves in between us. And at the door she can't say more Than just another day And without a sound I turn around And I walk away. Off we went to the coast .... Turnstones, Oiks, hundreds of Curlews and Lapwings in the fields... and a dramatic showing of crepuscular rays over the sea. Then we drove back along twisty lanes ..... in the far distance, a few hundred "winter swans" ... then a Barn Owl flew over the road and we watched it quartering the field .... maybe even halving it, who knows .... then a couple of Fieldfares flew over , and a Little Egret shot up out of a ditch and flew right over us. Earlier, I went down to the river to do that " Common Gull Count" I 'm doing .... 41 in the flock of ± 680 gulls .... I'm doing it because last year, rather oddly, there were hardly any ... so I'm monitoring them...but they seem to be back to normal now. As an added extra, on impulse I had go at confirming the true flock size ( which I had approximated by blocking it out in 20's) by photographing them ..... but as you will see, it didn't quite work out .... another opportunity for you all to have a laugh at my expense ... if you've actually stopped laughing yet about all those hoodwinks I showed you. but I couldn't see,in the strong sunshine, exactly which bits I was snapping, and the overlaps were hard to spot ... this pair isn't too bad ..... but this next one is a repeat .. ! Useless. ... and this one's only moved a dinky bit ... what you need is a tripod, so you can move the camera precisely for each frame.... what a shambles ! Doing it "hand-held" is a dead loss. But, experience, we are told, is cheap at any price. ... I suspect I've gone too far to the left this time ... bah !! [ Actually, I think it's bang on, after a closer look ] There's more of them ... but you've had your laugh. Here we go with the music ... two songs actually ... both highly relevant. ... After the usual old guff we plough through at the monthly meetings of the Flintshire Bird Club, we usually have a competition of some sort ... usually a quiz, sometimes identifying slide-show birds, that sort of thing, but this month we had a new one .... we all were wondering why we were asked to bring our optics with us, and here's why. We had what Ted called a "Ring-Wriggling" competition . At one end of the hall, Ted would hold up a stick with a bird-ring on it, and would display it, turn it around, jiggle it a bit etc, for 30 seconds or so and us lot, at the other end of the room, would try to read it using said optics. Interesting, yes, and useful. To add more variety, we started off with them really close up, and we used our bins for those. Then Ted moved back a bit, and the scopes came into their own. At each stage, Ted showed the larger , clearer rings first, then gradually made them smaller and trickier ... it was all very well thought out. He finished up back at the far end. All that time, we were all trying to read as much of each ring as we could. It was amazing how quiet we all were ! We all really got into it, and took it very seriously. Everyone wanted to win !! By the way, The hall isn't big enough to make things like wing-tags and neck-collars small enough to be a challenge..... but in the summer we could try it outside. We won't get the results right away ... there were about 15 of us, and we had a go at about 40 rings .... that's a lot of marking and checking .... and he's giving points for each digit/letter we get right .... sometimes even a partial reading of a ring can be useful. Ted has, apparently, now completed the scores. He's going to email them to all of us quite soon . Assuming we do this again sometime, it would be interesting to see if we "improved" significantly ... I think we would... and I bet some of us are doing a crafty bit of practice of our own ! Mind you, the "jiggling" bit would be tricky. Perhaps you could sellotape the stick to the cat ... or you could fasten it to a metronome ... hey, that would work well, because you can speed them up or slow them down !! Woo ... watch out Ted, you might be superfluous ! I can thoroughly recommend this .... we all enjoyed it, and whatever our scores are, it was an interesting experience. You might say, it was a ringing success. But whatever we do, we musn't let our arch-rivals, the Anti-Flintshire Bird Club hear about any of this. Oh yes .. there is such a thing. In fact, the vast majority of bird clubs like ours has an "anti-" version. But more about that later. .. there's no possible music that could go with that, no way, so I'm just putting this lovely Steely Dan song on here .... Another "half-asleep" thought slithered into my potato-like head this morning ..so here goes. You all must remember all that "ghostbirding" stuff ... I've written about it quite a bit lately. And "explained" it in about 100 different ways. [ It's called "Diallage": Multiple arguments to establish a single point. ] Anyway, about that "thought " ... I thought ... "can one bird be the "ghost" of another ??? Woooo ! And within a minute I'd found one. Coot is the "ghost" of Cormorant !!!! CORMORANT The other letters just fade away ! Leaving the "ghost" behind. Crumbs ... and Cripes...... and Oh Wow ! as everyone says these days. That has to be called a SUPERGHOST. Then there's the KEA .. it's the "superghost" of Black Redstart !! It's species of Parrot by the way. I thought of that one on the way downstairs. I'm a multi-tasking old Hector ! If you can count extinct birds, which often have very short " ghostable" names by the way, then you can find one of them buried inside....... you'll never guess..... Yes, 'tis CORMORANT again. It's a versatile bird is the Cormorant. There's a ghost lurking inside LADY AMHERST'S PHEASANT as well ... I wrote a terrific poem about it just a few days ago .... it's the South American version of the Ostrich ....... LADY AMHERST'S PHEASANT If you haven't read my Rhea poem, you've hardly lived at all ... it's on the far end of this link ... 271-the-truth-about-the-rhea.html Well, you've got the general idea by now, I hope. So, of course, I can't do ALL the important work around here ...... so I want you to rack your brains ( if you're called Brian, by the way, you can use Brian's Brain) and find some more of these Superghosts ... birds hiding inside other birds. In particular .... what's the longest bird which IS a ghost ? ( so far, COOT+ RHEA) ....... what's the shortest bird which HAS a ghost ? ( So far, CORMORANT ) ..... we've already seen that Cormorant has two ghosts inside it. So, are there any other birds which have two ghosts inside them ? And, of course, there's UK and world versions of the task too. Another thing ... it's quite possible that this is a completely new idea. Ghosts is an established, well-known word game, but applied to birds in this way ... birds within birds ... I don't know. You might get a World Record and be on Love Island ..the next series ! Let me know if you've "got" any, I shan't "nick" them from you or 'owt like that .. and then we can make a list !! We like a list. Music ..... it's the excellent Band of Horses and a " live on Jools Holland" performance of " Is there a Ghost" ... .. plus, of course, the singalong version ..... |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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