The more I skim through that book by Roy Gender (see post 732) the odder it gets. It seems to be a bit like a bird book which has had random acts of gormlessness inflicted upon it, and then all the lovely colour plates get ripped out of it so the poor reader won't realise he's getting things wrong. Here's his account of the Tree Sparrow ... he seems to think that the House Sparrow has a black head ! What... all of it ? But he fails to even mention the distinctive black cheek markings on Tree. And I wouldn't describe the crown as coppery-red either ... chocolaty-coloured I would say. And right at the start he kicks off with the " shorter and plumper" thing ... that's hardly the important thing is it ? Oh dear ! Here's his take on the Pied Flycatcher. He helps us all a lot by pointing out that it is smaller than the Spotted Flycatcher, as if that's the only difference .... what the hell is he doing ? Anyway, MY books say it's 13 cm long and therefore VASTLY tinier than the Pied at a massive 14cm. He is also obsessed with this idea that some birds are "welcome" in the garden and some are "nuisances" and " unwelcome." I bet he has signs up telling various species to piss off ! Plus, he generally takes up about a third of each account telling us about the nests and eggs. Doh ! ..and as for that last sentence ... no it isn't ! Right .. on to the magnificent Yellow Wagtail ... .... well, it is, of course, one of our " most charming " birds. Fair enough ! I like that thing about searching newly-upturned soil for grubs, " as do the thrush and robin" .... well ,OK, but why not " it hops about, as does the sparrow." That's not really any sort of way to help you recognise it. You could also say .." it breathes in and out as do the Heron and Oystercatcher " ... er, "and ...." ? And what about that last bit .... Flocks of what ? Do Yellow Wags get into flocks before departing ? How big are these flocks ? And he trots out that "wagging up and down" business" ... wagging goes side-to- side, nodding goes up ad down. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Remember ..when you read stuff, think to yourself ... Ist das so ? Ist das so, dass dein Herz in Tag und Stunden schlägt, ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, dass dein Blick die Welt in Scheiben sägt, ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Der Weg muss steinig sein, du musst gepeinigt sein. Du musst verrückt sein, solltest du dir zu schnell einig sein. Nur wer allein lacht, darf am Ende endlich kleinlich sein. Hast du gehört, du sollst den Tag nicht vor der Arbeit loben. Und nach der Arbeit dann im Gleichschritt durch den Abend toben. Willst du für immer weiter zappeln zwischen nichts und oben? Fühlst du dich abgehoben, sag fühlst du dich aufgeschoben? Wer hat das abgestimmt? Wer hat das vorgeschlagen? Ich glaub es stimmt bestimmt, aber ich wollte doch mal fragen: Sag mal ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, oder ist es vielleicht viel leichter? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, oder ist es vielleicht viel leichter? Ist dieses Morgen denn dein Leben ohne heute wert? Ist es das wert, dass man sich nie gegen die Meute wehrt? Was ist ein Glück schon wert, dass nur den Pharmazeuten ehrt? Ist jeder, der sich nie beschwert, am Ende wirklich unbeschwert? Ihr könnt so lange, wie ihr wollt, mit euren Regeln wedeln, solange Regeln in der Regel nur den Redner edeln. Verflucht ihr weiter nur den Wind in euren trägen Segeln Ihr könnt so weit ich weiß noch nicht einmal den Regen pegeln. Wer hat das abgestimmt? Wer hat das vorgeschlagen? Ich glaub es stimmt bestimmt, aber ich wollte doch mal fragen: Sag mal Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, oder ist es vielleicht viel leichter? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so? Muss das so sein? Ist das so? Muss das so sein? Ist das so? Muss das so sein? Sag mal Ist das so? Ist das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, oder ist es vielleicht viel leichter? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, ich meine muss das so? Ist das so, oder ist es vielleicht viel leichter? Here's what I put on the previous New Year's Day post ...
................ in case you missed it. If you lined up the whole UK bird list in alphabetical order .... which bird would be first ? and ... which bird would be last ?? We had a smouldering (and searing) talk about that at G. Stumps. It was almost soul-searching at times. And I think I got them right. Me. Yes. There you go ... that's it ........... find the key to your brain that you keep at the back of the drinks cupboard, and wind it up carefully, not forgetting to put the key back . By the way, if you put " alphabetical order" in alphabetical order, it would be .. aaabcehillpt deorr .. or, if you lumped it all into one ... aaabcdeehilloprrt ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Ceaselessly toiling in the profundities of my " attic/office/tip" in my attempt to bring some sort of order out of chaos, I continue to find things I haven't clapped eyes on for years ... and one of them is this magnificent book .. That's the front cover ... but it wraps round the back as well .... this is the "round the back" bit which overlaps with the front bit and the back bit a bit .. ......and here's the actual back bit that backs onto that middle bit a bit. So ...obviously, my idea was to set you the task of identifying as many of those birds as you can ... and the other creatures if you like. After all, you've got nowt else to do on the last day of the year. And the decade. And you will find more similarly crowded pictures inside ... 703 creatures in all ... spread over a whole load of beautifully executed plates. As you can see on the front bit, it was linked to a competition as well ... which unfortunately for us latecomers, finished way back in 1995. But never mind ... it's a beautiful book and well worth a look. I suppose I should finish the year with some sort of bird-related song .... I've just looked back to what I wrote on this day last year ... and here it is, as a special bonus ... It's dead simple this one ... here's 20 birds .... But ... one little blighter is not actually a bird ... it's a fake. A downright, hornswoggling , honest-to-goodness fake. Created (I like the sound of that) by devious me ! And your task is to sort out which one it is. I was very tempted to list them in order of preposterousness ! Maybe I have ~ here they are .... [a] Striped Wood-Haunter [b] Sharp-tailed Streamcreeper [c] Apostle-Bird [d] Anomalous Bishop [e] Violet-Eared Cordon-Bleu [f] Equivocal Babbler [g] Bare-Faced Go-Away Bird [h] Stitchbird [i] Mao [j] Rusty-Breasted Nunlet [k] Shiny-Thighed Scrub Pootoo [l] Grey Treepie [m] Glowing Puffleg [n] Princely Kingfisher [o] Starchy [p] Uniform Crake [q] Snowcap [r] Empress Brilliant [s] Leaf-love [t] Happy Wren Don't you just wish you had seen some of those ? I know I do. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Hawking Index is a way of measuring how soon you give up reading a book. A famous " largely unread" book is Stephen Hawking's " A Brief History of Time", which scores around 6½% ...... The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt : 98.5% ( Obviously incredibly popular and readable) Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins : 43.4% The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald : 28.3% Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James: 25.9% A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking: 6.6% Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty 2.4% ( Obviously cack ) It is measured "officially" in an odd way ... "The calculation is simple, and as Prof. Ellenberg says, “quick and dirty.” It exploits a feature of Kindle that allows readers to highlight favourite quotes. It averages the page number of the five most highlighted passages in Kindle versions, and ranks that as a percentage of the total page count. Although it does not measure how far people read into a book, it makes a decent proxy for it." That's how they got those figures up there. But for us ordinary mortals, an obvious way to find our own personal " giving-up-reading-it " figure would be to get the page we gave up at .... and the number of pages in the book ... and get a percentage. So if I gave up on a 500 page book at page 300 , that would mean I'd given up after reading reading 60% of it. So my Hawking Index for that book would be 60% ... or just 60 . When I tried to read War and Peace, I gave up at the end of volume two ... there was one more volume to go, and I'd completely lost track of all the characters in it, mainly because they all seemed to have about 8 different names each ! So for me, the Hawking Index would be just below 67%. Not bad for such a boring, tedious and dull book. But here's my question ..... have you "given up" on any bird books ? And if so, why and when ? Here's my excellent example ..... I gave up on reading "The Biggest Twitch" at page 49,at the end of the "Ecuador" chapter.... and the book is 300 pages long, so it gets a Hawking Index of 16.3 % from me. That puts it neatly between A Brief History of Time and Fifty Shades of Grey. If you want to see why I stopped reading it, here's the link ... 715-the-worst-world-tick-fest-book.html Because I was going to write about it, I dipped into various other bits of it to confirm that it was indeed nothing more than a cavalcade of hotels, mad drives/flights, new-found "friends" etc in an endlessly repeated loop ...and all in the tiniest print known to mankind. Oh ... and lots of ticks. So .... have you given up on a bird book ? And if you have, which one ... and why . And then you could tell me about it. ( [email protected]) And I could put it on here. Aha ! A Ms. Belinda Snodworthy from Totnes has sent me the great news that she also gave up on The Biggest Twitch ...on page 137 where they take the night boat to Cairo...... .... so she's given it a Hawking Index of approx 45½ %
This is the next in my world-famous " Worst-of" series. And this is the "Worst Garden Birdwatching Book" ever...... as far as I know. BUT ... what is so bad about it ? Let's have a look at his attempts to describe some of our dear garden birds .. ... here's the Starling .... ... so what's all that shite about " having few friends" .... anthropomorphism or what ? .. and all that screaming "going against it" ? What ? .. and those " darkening skies contributing to its unpopularity"... Oh, calamity !!! .. and preposterous claims that it is " greedy." No it is not. It's doing what it is designed to do. .. and what exactly, is " more than its share" .... please tell us Mr. Gender. It's a load of old drivel ... here's another one ......... Well, it does NOT resemble a House Sparrow. Not to anyone with › half a brain. And nobody .... nobody at all .. would refer to it as an Accentor. And I'm sure that loads of readers will be familiar with " oyster grey" as well. And apparently its best ID feature is that " jerky hop." And he trots out all that nest stuff .... leave the bloody nests out of it. Oh, and it is a " good friend" of the gardener. Because it catches much of its food on the wing. Tripe ! Crap !! There's worse to come ... Well, the song is nowt like a Nightingale. Sod all. And what exactly is a "countryman" ? Tweed jacket, pipe, gun over the shoulder, and a posse of gamekeepers to keep the Hen Harriers down. And in what way does "the jet-black head of the male and the blue shading of its throat" make it " a familiar garden bird ? How useful it is that we now know that its nest resembles that of the garden-warbler ... especially useful advice considering that in the garden-warbler section he doesn't tell us what its nest is like. Its about as useful as me telling you that I look just like Mr. P. Halfwhistle of 233 Admiralty Terrace. Moving on ... you can spot the glaring cock-up a mile off !! Enjoy !!!!! I trust that all my astute readers have spotted the Clanger of the Century !? .. and what's all this tosh about "his friend"? ... and as usual with our Mr. Gender, a third of that is about the nest. I might dig up more of that ..... who knows. But for now .... music ! Not only that .... its marginally relevant. Here's links to some of my other "Worst-of" choices ...
642-the-worst-bird-book-in-the-universe.html 644-the-worst-bird-book-in-the-universe-part-2.html 659-the-worst-foreign-bird-guide.html 665-the-worst-nature-newspaper-column.html 715-the-worst-world-tick-fest-book.html Every January 1st Flintshire Bird Club does a "Big Sit" .. you know all about them I'm sure ... you stay in one place and try to get as big a list as you can over a specified time .... we do it from 7:30 am to noon, then we have a break, then we do 1:30pm to 4:30pm. It's been like that for years .... oh, and we compete against our sworn enemies, the Flintwichers .... they're rubbish. They can hardly count to 20 ! But here's the thing ..... there's a tendency to lose interest a bit around 11 am, and again around 3:30 -ish .... so we've adopted a new scoring method ... instead of 1 point per species, we're going to get 1pt for the 1st tick, 4 for the 2nd, 9 for the 3rd, 16 for the 4th and so on. Basically, you get the square of the number. So your 20th species is worth 20 x 20 = 400 points !!! That way, there's a bit more of an incentive to get those " late-on" birds. We're going to give it a go anyway. So .... let's suppose us lot gets 67 species .... what will our score be ? [Slight pause while you're all thinking ... shite ! That'll take a bit of calculating !] But actually, it doesn't ... there's several "short cuts" you can use to work any sum of consecutive squares in a couple of minutes ..... try that internet thing and you should be able to find them. And if you can't, worry not ... I'll show you the easiest way after the music ..... ..probably after the usual huge trail of helpful things.... L
e t's h av e a c a s c a d e of "H e lp ful Le t t e r s" So ... Fox/Cow/Emu/Deer ...... what have they all got in common ? Here's some helpful dots leading you to the tricky answer . . . helpful dot >> . . . . . ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ x2 As you can see, they all have their letters in an alphabetical sequence. We allow creatures like Deer with the "ee" in it. And my question is .... can you find any UK birds that do the same thing ? Or for that matter ... any birds anywhere in the world ? And as an extra task, there's birds like the Rhea which has its letters in reverse alphabetical order ... ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA That should give you something to think about. Meantime, here's a haunting whisp of a song from top French band Noir Désir. On n'est pas encore revenu du pays des mystères Il y a qu'on est entré là sans avoir vu de la lumière Il y a là l'eau, le feu, le computer, Vivendi, et la terre On doit pouvoir s'épanouir à tout envoyer enfin en l'air On peut toujours saluer les petits rois de pacotille On peut toujours espérer entrer un jour dans la famille Sûr que tu pourras devenir un crack boursier à toi tout seul On pourrait même envisager que tout nous explose à la gueule Autour des oliviers palpitent les origines Infiniment se voir rouler dans la farine A l'envers, à l'endroit, à l'envers, à l'endroit A l'endroit, à l'envers, à l'envers, à l'endroit Y'a t'il un incendie prévu ce soir dans l'hémicycle On dirait qu'il est temps pour nous d'envisager un autre cycle On peut caresser des idéaux sans s'éloigner d'en bas On peut toujours rêver de s'en aller mais sans bouger de là Il paraît que la blanche colombe a trois cents tonnes de plombs dans l'aile Il paraît qu'il faut s'habituer à des printemps sans hirondelles La belle au bois dormant a rompu les négociations Unilatéralement le prince entame des protestations Doit-on se courber encore et toujours pour une ligne droite? Prière pour trouver les grands espaces entre les parois d'une boîte Serait-ce un estuaire ou le bout du chemin au loin qu'on entrevoit Spéciale dédicace à la flaque où on nage, où on se noie Autour des amandiers fleurissent les mondes en sourdine No pasaran sous les fourches caudines A l'envers, à l'endroit, à l'envers, à l'endroit A l'endroit, à l'envers, à l'envers, à l'endroit ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ..and on top of all that, what about insects .... ? But ..a warning ..... this way madness lies ... because those creatures are rare. But why are they so unusual ? What is the " mathematics" of it ? There's something to keep you busy over the "slack" week between now and the new year. And I hope you noticed the two birds in that Noir Désir song. A few posts ago, #726 to be precise, I revealed the "truly rubbishly deeply" nature of a book aimed at, er, young bird-watchers . And a right pair of jumped-up over-privileged gits they are too ! And the old git, a Mr. Nesbitt, who whisks them off to a remote seaside cottage in Devon is no better.It looks like a right dodgy set-up to me. [The two kids, Mike and Chips ( a girl) seem to be about 14-16-ish as far as I can tell] I've been looking for a passage that sums up everything that is wrong with it .... Mr. Nesbitt is trying to get Mike to begin an intensive study of the life-cycle of the song Thrush ! He's already told him to use 5" by 3"* record cards ( in different colours for song, nesting, moulting,etc, which he must keep in small drawers which can be made of cardboard, wood or metal according to what he can afford !! Then he has rambled on about correlating song with temperature and blah blah blah ... then Mike chucks in a question .... " What is a physiologist, Mr. Nesbitt ?" "Why*, someone who makes a study of the many changes that occur in living matter. But as his* work involves dissecting specimens in the laboratory you will have to do without his* services for the time being. Well, so much for song. The next point of importance is nesting, or if you want to be really technical you can call it " Breeding Biology." I use buff-coloured cards* for all matters relating to this section. you, of course, can use what colours you like.* Now here again is a vast field for your efforts. Some of the things we want more information about relate to the actual time of the year when pairing takes place, and the type of showing off or courtship-display that the cock* indulges in when trying to attract the lady of his choice. " That's all very well, Mr. Nesbitt, but as the pairing and courtship-display will have taken place before nesting begins, I won't know anything about it until the following year." " Now Mike, don't try and tie me up in knots. You are quite right, I only suggested your starting work at the beginning of the nesting season because it is the easiest time of the year to see what a bird is up to. Once you have found the nest there is a definite point on which to focus most of your attention.Before this happens you need a great deal of patience and perseverance to keep an individual bird under observation. The actual method you use is one, no doubt, that will only come by experience in the field.* There is a golden rule, however. Keep your eyes open and watch, and go on watching and watching and then some day you may come upon an intimate little aspect of behaviour which has never been seen before." * Old farty-pants Nesbitt goes on and on and on about all this .... using old sacks for hide-building, the construction of peep-holes which must be conveniently placed so that they can be used whilst sitting down and which must be closed with little flaps when not in use, and how he must obtaining a suitable camera, blah-blah-blah. Surely that would encourage any child with half a brain to get the soonest train back to some sort of normal teenage life. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There's pages and pages of that sort of tripe. Talk about too much too soon.! They're the sort of kids who say things like .. " Rather" and "Goody" and "I say !" and " Good for you !" and" Good Heavens !" They reply with " I should jolly well think so" and " How frightfully interesting" and " Oh my Golly Gosh." As you can see, I think that book is an abomination. Crumbs .. apparently 'tis Christmas Day. The music should be something Christmas - y. And this certainly is. One of my favourite German songs ... Zwischen den Jahren ... " Between the Years " .... * I wouldn't be at all surprised if that 5" x 3" is some secret Masonic code.
* I told you they keep starting sentences with " Why , " * So ... physiologists are all male are they ? * Buff-coloured blasted cards. This man is a control freak. * A generous but rather incongruous and out-of-character concession. * All birds are "cocks" or "hens" in this book. * I'm not sure if Mike knows what " experience in the field" might be. There are other interpretations which might lead to other scenarios. * So ..you spend hours freezing half to death in a sackcloth hide, only to "discover" some footling bit of "behaviour" that nobody has seen before. how exciting.And vital. Some of those "lost photographs" were blurry ... but that can have a rather lovely effect occasionally ... this one exemplifies the sheer isolation of those seabirds ... and their precarious existence at the mercy of winds and tides ...... I like this one as well... for the same reasons ... ..but this one was the strangest ... or "mostly ghostly", if you like. I'm not even sure what they were ... they look to me like ghostly apparitions frozen in time. Maybe they were the species "described" in this "possibly 8th century" poem ... My clothes are silent when I walk on the earth, Or rest at home, or ride the waters. Sometimes my wings and this lofty air Lift me high above the houses of men, And the heavens carry me far and wide Over the world. My feathered wings Whistle loudly, singing a shrill And melodious song when, moving high, I pass like a soul overland and sea. ..and maybe not .... La Marea ... the tide ...... This cheered me up considerably during an otherwise low-key visit to [a] My sister and [b] Grumbling Stumps .... ..and this evening, as I came up the stairs to my "office", which, by the way, is now an even bigger tip that it was before I started " tidying" it, at 7pm-ish, I heard a huge racket going on outside, so I opened the skylight, and realised there was a massive number of geese careering around the skies and deafening the neighbourhood . It wasn't the usual noise a big flock makes when it takes flight normally... they sounded really panicky.I couldn't see any of them in the pitch dark, but there must have been many hundreds to make that much noise. Greylags mostly, some Canadas ..... and over the following 10 minutes or so the noise gradually dropped, the geese seemed to be moving away , and I started to pick up some Pinkfeet as well... presumably they had been totally drowned out by the others. A rather odd experience. ...so ... the "music" is going to be highly relevant ... The only thing is, my house isn't called " Winnetka". It isn't called anything. My sister gave me three big metal letters , Y, R and A a good while ago as a birthday present, so I wanted to use them to call the house "AYR" but The Sig Oth wouldn't let me. So it still has no name. I've never seen a house with a 3-letter name. If I was in France I'd call mine "CUL" or perhaps "FOU" And here in sunny Flintshire it should really be called " TIN." All solid 3-letter names. And here's another totally irrelevant thought..... There must be a house somewhere in the UK that has the highest house number. ... but ..... what is that number ...and do "they" realise it is the biggest ??? But what would happen is ... someone would build a cafe next to it to cater for all the rubberneckers would had come to see the highest-numbered-house in the entire country. But then it wouldn't be ...because the cafe would have the next number as its address. Then someone would build a hotel next to the cafe to cater for all the hordes of people who wanted to visit the cafe. And so on ...to infinity. That's the Hilbert House Paradox that is. Well, a sort of offshoot of it. And here's an infinity song ... ..and yet another infinity .. gorgeous song too .. a bit better than the first one .. and then ... hang on ... this could go on for ever ...
You might remember that I chose that P G Tips " Card Collection Booklet" as my Worst Bird Book for Young People ..... 644-the-worst-bird-book-in-the-universe-part-2.html ... but I've dug up from the depths of my "office" a book I can't actually remember buying ... I suspect it was a hurriedly-hidden-away birthday present centuries ago from a well-meaning aunt . But this book is crap in a very different way. And peculiar. It's very old for a start ... Mcmxlvii And here's what its called ... But its secret title could well be " The Ogre of the Day ..or Ire and Work Ahead." So ..who did that? Who put those rings round those bits of the title page ? It might have been me .. but I certainly don't remember doing it. And that's not all ... Well ...let's draw a line under that aspect of the book. Why have I ranked it as "crap" ? Well, the very first chapter is crammed with public-school snooty crappy Rugger-playing gits. Yes, "Rugger." I had enough of all that when I was at school..... ..here's a few chunks of said Ch.1 to get the flavour of it ... Mike is being sent away to stay in a house in the countryside after being badly injured whilst playing the aforesaid "Rugger" ... and the old gaffer turns out to be a "well-known ornithologist" .... read on ... There was 7½ pages of all that tripe .... no wonder "the pencil-person" decided to put a different face on the whole thing. Was it me ? I wish I knew. It's certainly the sort of thing I would do. And ...just saying ... I've never encountered anybody whose eyes had " a merry twinkle" ...and if I did I would start running. And, would you believe it, there's a whopping 29 pages about nests and eggs. Or as the publishers might have done it .... XXIX . Next time ...the shooting expedition .. oh yes ! And there's a WHOLE CHAPTER where the two children get the " Latin Names" lecture. And I don't think he made a very good job of it. So there. But that's all for the future ... this post is far too long already...... |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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