December kicks off today ..so here's my rather dismal and pathetic round-up of the sort-of-rare-ish birds I've spotted in a whole panoply of previous Decembers .... prepare to be unimpressed ... 1st Dec 2000 nothing. Not even worth a capital n. 2nd Dec1995 A presumably " shop-bought" Meadow Bunting attracted a massive crowd despite the fact that we all knew it was purchased from somewhere in Birmingham. A strange morning indeed. 3rd Dec NOTHING 4th Dec ZILCH 5th Dec ZERO 6th Dec 1987 Black-throated Diver, Pennington Flash. 7th Dec A total blank. 8th Dec Ditto 9th Dec 2014 Male Chiloe Wigeon on the Lancaster Canal ... probably actually truthfully not countable but it outshone the Mallards and Moorhens. 10thDec A barren wasteland of zeroness. 11th Dec A blasted heath of barrenness 12 Dec Dim byd ( Welsh for "nowt")(you should all know that by now) 13 Dec Nada 14th Dec 1999 No rare birds, bit it was the historic day on which I bought my lovely Zeiss Dialyt 7x42 bins .. but had there been any rarities, I could have watched them rather better than the thousands of preceding days. 15th Dec ...... a black hole of birdlessness. ...... as were the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th. 21st Dec 1996 Black Brant, Pilling Lane, Fylde 1997 Little Auk, Ramsden Dock, Barrow. 22nd Dec Zero stuff, including 23rd to 26th. Bah ! 27th Dec Four Snow Geese , Lancaster Lune salt-marsh. 28th Dec Zilch. 29th Dec 1988 Hoopoe .. Warbray, Cumbria. 30th Dec 238238 divided by 7. then by 11, then by 13, then subtract 238 . Go on ! 31st Dec 1984 Yellow-browed Warbler, Inskip, Fylde. 2000 Waxwing, just the one, last day of the year, jammy or what, Arnside. 2003 2 Shore Larks, 6 Snow Buntings, Starr Hills Blackpool. And quite a few of those aren't real rarities at all .... bah ! Surprisingly, December isn't the "worst" month for rarities. More on that in the pipeline. And here's the links to the other " Monthly Half-Decent Sightings" for previous months .. 855-many-magnificent-may-days.html 878-june-highlights-from-the-past.html 898-all-my-julys-of-the-past.html 913-august-birds-from-the-past.html 930-september-looms-into-view.html 949-october-memories.html 964-novembers-from-the-past.html As I write this, we have drizzle drizzling drizzlingly ... "glaw mân" = thin/fine/petty rain. Here's a very appropriate home-made video. Meteorology rather than Ornithology. It should read"Dafydd Iwan yn y glaw" ... but I missed the "a" out and couldn't fix it. Very elemental this ...
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" Yesterday I got talking to somebody, and she told me that some other bloke had spotted a Kingfisher not all that far from my house. Grrr. Whoever that bloke was, he's is, in my little universe, a "Kiki".. and a Pimp.!!! A what, you might ask ? A Kiki .. a birder who encroaches on what you consider to be your patch. Like he did. As does a Pimp. He/she Peeks Into My Patch. Kiki comes from Hector's House ....essential viewing for all age groups .... a frog called Kiki lives next door but spends most of her time up a ladder peeking over said wall and Hector, a rather cantankerous character, doesn't like it. But that's not the only bit of birding slang wot I've made up .... here's the lot ...so far.... In the very early weeks of this now bulging bulkyblog I invented a bunch of "new" birding word to suit many situations and needs. It all started off with ...surprise surprise ...some Welsh ones .. well, based on Welsh anyway ... and here they are all in one place ..... ..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. 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. Well, now you know. By using these terms regularly you will be admired by all !!! Or maybe not. And now .. some music. But not just any old music..... Whenever I listen to this song, it sort of overwhelms me ... a beautiful experience..... ..and now, here's the sing-along-with-death-cab-for-cutie version .... ..and here's Kiki the Frog ..... getting into a scrape as usual ... I'm sure you enjoyed those rather contradictory " Ten Rarest Birds in the World" videos a few posts back .... 973/974 . I don't know why they chose seven for this one ... maybe there aren't any more so the list had to stop there. It's quite reassuring that there's only seven of them ... phew ! Before watching the video, you might like to have a go at that list yourself .... and then you can mark your own homework . Incidentally, have a good look at those in the "Emu" section. Well, that was all very educational ..... But what I want to know now is ... what are the 7 most dangerous SMALL birds !! I'm going to try to find some .. as, I hope, will you. It's ideal lock-down fodder. I'm thinking ... Humming-birds nesting in your ears while you sleep ... .... Wrens plucking your nose-hairs while you're breakfasting in the garden. .... Goldcrests gobbling your ear-wax ....quite nutritious I would think. I'm also thinking ... who are the 7 most dangerous men in the world ? Anyhow, after all that dangerous stuff ..... some soothing music ... or is it ? ...I hope you spotted that "separable verb" .... anfangen = to begin.
" Wo fängt dein Himmel an" " Where does your Heaven begin ?" Where indeed ? ... here's a cavalcade of rarities ..... but there's no voice-overs to tell you what they are, so we can have the pleasure of identifying them from the comfort of own own homes. In these tumultuous times, 'tis good to have something to think about ... the comments, by the way, are rather disappointing .... I hope you were suitably engrossed by it all ... I know I was.... and here's a sprightly couple venturing out into the countryside ...... ... and now, the sing-along version .. So there I was flicking through this year's diary, partly to take stock of this tumultuous year, and partly to pick out the outstanding birds ..... and particularly, I wanted to see how many ( or rather) how very few owls I had come across. And later in the day me and The Significant Otter took a short drive to see my sister .... with full social distancing of course .... and then we had a little birdless walk, and then we set off home again ... and by then it was good "owling" time, and lo and behold, a fine Barn Owl flew right in front of us, and it flapped over a hedge and was gone . Luckily, the S.O. spotted it too. To put it in context, in my little area, owls have almost disappeared. It wasn't so long ago that Tawnys and Littles were pretty normal sightings/hearings, and other species ,though much scarcer, were occasionally around. But now they have almost vanished. Here's my" this year's owl list" .. 6th Jan 2120 hrs ... Male Tawny hooting just 100m from the house. 18th Feb Squashed Tawny Owl found on a road about half a mile from the house. It's such random incidents that can make a big difference. 781-news-both-good-and-bad.html 18th Aug Male and female Tawnys about 300m from the house at 10pm. And until today's Barn Owl that was it ... a meagre haul compared to the situation 5/10/20 years ago. I was driving the car the first time I heard this song on the radio .... and I pulled over and listened to it, absolutely spellbound.... and I still am..... Sometimes birding can get a bit over-serious and hyper-competitive and too much of a rat- race ... but not everyone's like that........ here's a bloke who puts it all in perspective, and has a refreshingly tangential take on it all .... he has some interesting tips and hints to help us over-serious obsessives .... so ..... here we go .... I hope you've picked up a few new ideas from all that .... I know I did. But now ... some irrelevant but magnificent music .... Daisybox ... " Pause" As I'm writing this at 20:35 I can hear a flock of Pinkfeet overhead.
And overheard, as it happens. Bird of the Day yesterday was the wily Wigeon. Because.... in the 7:30pm darkness a Wigeon flew invisibly but noisily around the housetops. And you can't really mistake that whistle ! Weee-ooo... ( repeat frequently). But it wasn't just bird of the day .... it was a House Tick as well. We're not tooooo far away from Wigeons, but they've never put in a " from the house" appearance . It now joins other top house ticks like Water Rail, Crossbills, Bittern, Osprey and best of all, Common Crane ! Crumbs.! Crikey. Coo ! Cripes !! The Wigeon is one of those unfortunate birds that don't rhyme with much. Pigeon, smidgin, kitchen (?) ... An unfortunate bird is the Wigeon it's bigger than your average pigeon, but smaller than the Eider by a smidgin, and hardly resembles the Gudgeon, which lacks any semblance of gumption and can suffer from under-consumption. This poem has now reached a junction so I'm off for my 12 o'clock luncheon ! in my luxurious kitchen ( or is all this rubbish just fiction ?) (Once again, do I hear the distant scraping of barrels ?) Here's Klee ... "Zwischen den Jahren" ... "between the years" ... lovely song ... I wasn't there in 1996 .... so I'm not on view ..... so it's been a bit painful watching this ...but it also includes a short view of the "Log-Call" which takes place at the end of each Scilly Day.... maybe the only bit that's on the internet ........ woo ! There's several birds there that aren't on my blasted list. A little while ago I wondered whether I'll ever get to East Anglia again. 929-norfolk-will-i-ever-go-there-again.html And I have similar thoughts about Scilly. What I miss most is those pelagics .... cold, wet, smelly, windy .... and you might see nothing ! But it's totally absorbing , full-on the whole time.... I've written a bit about them, and Scilly in general, on here somewhere or other ..... 260-24th-october-2002-on-st-marys-ac-ati.html ( Ac ati ="as well" in Welsh) 319-seasickness-and-the-curse-of-the-pelagic.html 357-the-king-of-bryher-surely-a-lost-poem-by-william-topaz-mcgonagall-the-worlds-worst-poet.html 465-the-king-of-bryher-strikes-again.html Hey-up .... music time .... I took this snap a few hours ago ... terrific sunset.... but nowt to do with the current topic ... It seems everyone has got a different list of The Ten Rarest Birds ! But as the saying goes .. "opinions are like arseholes ..everybody's got one." And the obvious question is .... how do they know ? Seriously. By their very nature, rare birds are very hard to find...because they are VERY RARE. And the rarer they are ... the harder they are to find. There might be loads and loads of rarer birds than this lot .... But so far, nobody has found them. And here's yet another selection ..... There does seem to be a majority of larger birds in those various selections. And there's lots of speculation as to why that is so. (Mainly, as far as I know, by me.) For a start, larger birds are easier to find and kill. Plus, they are more likely to fly into windmills .. .. or get hit by cars .. ... purely because they're a bigger target. ... or run out of food .... ... whereas tiny birds can fly through windmills with impunity, mostly .... and they can hide away much more easily than those big jobs. .... and they can get into little crannies and not get soaked and then don't die of cold. .... and Big Bird's nests are much more conspicuous so the young get predated. ..and here's another thing .. If you're doing a bird survey, you're going to spot the big stuff more easily ... and you will probably miss quite a lot of the small stuff. So ..you'll think they're rare but they're not. Not at all. You might remember a book called " Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare." I've written about it on here somewhere..... 448-why-big-fierce-animals-are-rare.html Hang on ...here's another selection...... .....here's a song about a sunset ..... Here's a video about the ten rarest birds in the world..... ... it'll be good to know them at last .... ... very handy for quiz-addicts ... ... a bit of certainty in a turbulent world.... but ... is that list reliable ? .. here's another "ten rarest birds in the World" ... ..... I can't help wondering if they'll be the same ten .... and now you'll be able to find out ... ...hang on ...here's yet another "ten rarest birds in the w o r l d" ... things are getting a bit complicated ... er ... here's yet a n other ..... ..more of this gripping topic in the fullness of time ... but for now, this ... |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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