.....Well, a New Year beckons. ...... and as for 2020, good riddance ! ....... I haven't a clue about my 2020 Year List, I don't "do" that any more. ........ but in times past, when I was a sprightly youth, I was more geeky. .........and therefore I can show you what January can provide ... ......... so, here's my haul of rare and rare-ish stuff in my Januarys in the past ... ........... a pretty sparse collection .... Jan 1st 1985 Black Redstart + Snow Bunting ( not exactly rare ...but good stuff) 2000 A single Waxwing at Arnside ( ditto) Jan 2nd 1984 Franklin's Gull .. Martin Mere WWT, Lancs. 2000 Green-winged Teal, m, at Cockersands. Jan 3rd 1988 Ring-billed Gull, Seaforth, L'Pool Jan 4th 1994 Little Bunting, Ecclestone Mere, St. Helens. 2001 Ivory Gull, 1st Winter, Montrose ( Crikey !) + 3 Surf Scoters and 5 Slav Grebes Jan 5th Nowt. Jan 6th 2002 Red Kite, Trough of Bowland. Jan 7th-9th ......Zilch. Jan 10th 1987 Spotted Sandpiper, Lower Rivington, Lancs. 1987 Red-crested Pochard, Seaforth Jan 11th 1993 Pied-billed Grebe, Druridge Pools, Newcastle. 1993 Lapland Buntings, Ryehope, Sunderland. 2003 Water Pipit, Leighton Moss. 2004 American Robin, Grimsby Industrial Estate. Jan 12th 1992 Red-breasted Goose, Caerlaverock + Ring-necked Duck. Jan 13th,14th,15th ... oh, the emptyness ! Jan 16th 2000 White-tailed Eagle, Southwold + a dodgy-ish Red-breasted Goose. Jan17th 1997 American Wigeon, Heysham outfalls, Lancs. Jan 18th-22nd Zero. Jan 23rd Black-throated Diver, Heysham. Jan 24th A barren waste of nothingness. Jan 25th 1998 1998 Dark-eyed Junco, 27, Queen St, Chester. What a bird !!!!! 1987 Red-necked Grebe Jan 26/27/28/29 Nothingness, nothingness .. Jan 30th 1999 Cattle Egret, Martin Mere. Jan 31st Absolutely devoid of anything. Actually, it wasn't too bad really. And ,of course, lots of those jaunts had ups and down of their own. Some of which I have written about in the deep darkness of this blog. 88-white-tailed-eagles-and-me.html 188-the-dark-eyed-junco-experience.html There's more of them ... but the "linky-thing" has stopped working. So ..straight to the music ..and don't worry, dear readers ... I'm alright ... ... and I hope you are too.... There's an old saying " Growing old is like being punished for something you haven't done".
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I've been trying to keep you all busy in these tricky times ..and here's yet another brain-boggling bonce-buster for you ..... ... and it's competitive ... there's points to be scored ! .... you get your copy of The Observer's of Birds .. written by Severe Benson . (.. and in my examples of what happens, remember yours might be a bit different .) ..... and you open it at the first double-page spread ..... on the right side, there's a Jay. ... it might be something else in later/earlier editions, but whatever it is, your job is to predict what the bird "behind" it is ... in my copy it's the Carrion Crow. .. if you get that right, you get 5 points. ... and you get 3 points if it's the right sort of bird ... e.g both Thrushes, both Warblers. ... so predicting Song Thrush and it is actually Mistle ... you get 3 points. .... but you wouldn't get it for Blackbird ... it has to have the same ending ! ... otherwise you would be getting into eternal arguments about close shaves. So, you've "done" the first one. Then you look at the "new" right-hand bird, which in mine is Hooded Crow. What's "behind" that ? Its very absorbing. But you get better at it as you go along .... you can flick back to remind you of what the last few were, which helps a bit. But it ain't a doddle .... I learned to slow down ... think carefully and don't rush. And you can do it a bit at a time. You can do the same thing with almost any ID book .... going from one "page of species" to the next ... and looking at the "bottom one" on the first page, and the "top one" on the next. So there's loads of scope to use other bird books in the same way. I know it all sounds a bit odd, but it works, and once you've got started you don't want to stop. Although it's better to have a few breaks. And it was all my idea ..... I'm an inquisitive old Hector ! And as an extra bonus ..a "relevant" song.... Metallica " Turn the Page" .. it's got the words as well ... ... and as an extra bonus feature, there's lots of other Observer's books ... there's Butterflies, Trees & Shrubs, Wild Flowers, Ships, Birds Eggs, Dogs, Horses & Ponies, Fish, Geology ..... brilliant ! Three days ago, a white-collared Blackbird appeared in the garden . But it wasn't until yesterday that I managed to get some half-decent snaps of it. Right side ... Left side... Because of its vicarish white collar we've christened it " The Rev" I wanted to call it licorice because it rhymes with vicarish. But The Significant Otter said it was silly. So, The Rev it stays. The good thing about it is that I can keep track of it, unlike all the other ones that look exactly the same ... it might stick around for weeks ...months ... years (?) . Who knows ? Our garden has been a bit of a Blackbird-magnet lately ... at times there have been seven of them at once ... and there's been a lot of territorial argy-bargy as a result. You might remember that last winter we had several Blackcaps in residence .... 2 males and a female at least .... and I could tell the two males apart because one of them had a white feather on one side .... very helpful. It was only recently that us humans realised how short the life-span of small birds actually was. Many Robin-spotters were mightily-miffed when they found out that "their Robin" was unlikely to have been the same one they saw last year, such was the attrition rate. If they had a "distinctive" one they might have realised the truth of their life-span for themselves. And talking of death, a topic which has become much more real in recent times, here's a highly relevant poem wot I wrote on here ages ago .. it demonstrates the various ways that different categories of birders could be bumped off this mortal coil ... I want to die in the way a Robin-stroker ought to whilst making some repairs to my home-made Blue Tit box .. and falling off the ladder that I've propped against the lean-to A worthy way, I think, to pop your clogs. I hope to have a dude's death, it's completely up my street, by falling off a cliff whilst Puffin- spotting. As I bounce from rock to boulder, I'll think, how very sweet, that I'll be feeding all those sea-birds whilst I'm rotting ! All us top-rank twitchers, we'd like to kick the bucket tearing down the motorway, at 80 ,90, faster, So, with my mates all in the back, hoping we will tick it I'll crash the car into a bridge, and of our fate I'll be the master ! Maybe I should meet my end the way us birders should Doing something "conservationist" and consequently "good" so I'll make a papier-maché box and then get buried in it then it and I will slowly rot, which will maybe "Save the Planet." [ A worthy cause, you must admit I'd love to contribute to it But maybe not that drastically I might just give "them" 50p ] As an avid birdwatcher I'd really love to die lying in a field whilst logging migrants flying by, and then from out of nowhere, a tractor would squash me flat and in 10 seconds I'd expire, and I hope that would be that.. Now bird-watchers, well, they all have their very special way of taking leave of this sorry world .... on a soggy survey day they'll get swallow-ed up in squelching mud, and step off this mortal coil, and if you're lucky, you will too, which helps fertilise the soil. The Ornithologist has ways most logical, off his perch to fall, these days they're hardly relevant, they ain't no use at all to birders, twitchers, robin-strokers, all the others too... one "breathed his last" last week, inhaling fumes from gannet poo ! ( that's a "scientific" way to go for your normal ornithologist, it was probably at the top of his "bio-logical" ways to perish list ! ) As a lifelong Scientist I feel that I should croak in some way that's appropriate, and fitting, and bespoke and logical and numerical, not as do "other" folk, so I think I'll eat my slide rule, and consequently, choke. ( there's another scientific way.... eating lots of graphs and charts, so I'd expire 3 hours later from my exponential farts !) ( All that peculiar figure-stick munching gives a new meaning to "number-crunching !) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ..and here's another one I wrote ages ago about things we could catch from birds ... This little verse must be learned by all medical students in their first week of study. It was specially written to be memorable ... for obvious reasons..... From many birds you can catch some horrible diseases Like the deadly Krots which buggers up your arms and kneeses And Lublub, Wems and Nilnud, which slowly rot your crutch Which make you a pariah, and dangerous to touch ! Ekawittik is a nasty one, which you catch from arctic birds You get it off their feathers and it leads to painful turds Whilst Ognimalf, a deadly curse, Does just the same but much much worse. From larger birds you'll get the Yerpso A mix of diarrhoea and lumbago. Have I mentioned Elocnitarp ? It's like being skewered by something sharp Your skin goes scaly, like a carp. While Tooc, carried by many species Causes funny-coloured faeces ! It's obvious what Rotnecca does You only catch it from the dove People think they're very nice, but usually they're plagued by lice. In two days time your head falls off At least it stops that horrid cough. Worst of all, the dreaded Kua Because there isn't one Oh dea. I hope you all noticed the interesting/interesting thing about all those "diseases." 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, you know Where the wind's 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'm feeling so sad That I never had one of your children Then across the room, inside the tomb, a chance has waxed and waned The night is young, why are we so hung up in each other's chains? I must take her and I must make her while the dove domains And feel the juice run as she flies Run my wings 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, we can't say more than just another day And without a sound I turn around and I walk away This ridiculous 5-word "sort-of-sentence" includes two UK birds ... MAGPIE TAIL CAR LIP CRANE But ..... you can use all 21 of those same letters to create exactly two ! Off you go then ! No slacking !! Don't pretend you've summat better to do !!! ..and here's your Boxing Day Remarkable Song ..... .and here's a link to a long-ago article in which there is a another mystery bird for you to find 27-ghosts-in-the-machine.html Let's get started/startled?... with my usual Christmas Conundrums ..... this is part 1 .. What's special about this rather short list of UK birds that I made ... ? [1] Harlequin Duck [2] Zitting Cisticola [3] Pomarine Skua [4] Jay [5] Waxwing [6] Magnificent Frigatebird [7] Raven I actually showed you that list a good while ago. I'll put one of my terrific scribbles on here now before we move on to the next stage .... ... and don't scroll on down until you're really really stumped ... because I'm going to tell you what that list is all about.. ..... Right then .... ...those seven UK birds contain all 26 letters of the alphabet. ..... it was the result of a lot of searching around the British List... ..... but I'm still not totally sure that it can't be done with fewer birds. ... or still sticking to 7, but with fewer letters ... If you can do either task, you'll probs be the first in the Wide World to do it ! .. but could you survive the media attention you would attract ? Anyhow, let's have some music ... a lovely Wir sind Helden song ... As you all know, us top birders look forward to the avalanche of Crimbo-Cards we get. But we're only bothered about the ones that have birds on them. Obviously. Here's my "haul" so far ..... WREN (?) Well, I think it's meant to be a Wren 1 ROBIN 2 NORTHERN CARDINAL 1 YELLOWHAMMER 1 PENGUIN sp. ( small, cartoonish, on skateboard) 1 PHEASANT 3 PARTRIDGE ( in Pear Tree) 1 GULL sp. completely white, size indeterminate 5 GRAND TOTAL 15 In previous years I've shown you lucky lot the actual pictures ... ..but I still haven't worked out how to do close-ups with my crap new "camera" and The Significant Otter has refused to let me use her swanky I-Pad to snap them for me. The instruction book tells me billions of things I can do but don't need .. ...but nothing at all about close-up -stuff, which I do need. So I've put that one from last year up at the top instead .... I would be fascinated/amazed/sproggled and clonked if you sent me your Christmas card lists. Then I could get a more global sample. There's my email .... seasidebar@mail .com And/or/if/possibly as a Comment. ..and now ..... a song that always cheers me up in this topsy-turvy world .. As any fule no, so far this year I haven't spotted any kingfishers inside my dinky 3K. Here's the " kingfisher" tally of kingfisher sighting that I compiled 1992 - 1995 when I was a specky-four-eyes- counting-everything sort of gink "living" in Lancaster. And as you can see, winter is much the best time to get them.... ..but until yesterday ,not a single one had I spotted .... but then. a miracle .... as I strolled homewards ( adref in your actual Welsh) there was one conveniently sat on an overhanging branch. Woo! It flashed its beaky beak about a bit, and it was a male. As am I ... As yew orl no, the wily Kingfisher is NOT on my house list. I wondered if I should stick my head out of my office window when I got home, on the off-chance that it would whizz by .... which I did ... but it didn't. Bah !! That handy chart is but a tiny tinky-winky fraction of a much bigger thing that I've wrote ... .. it's the one on the left .... a mighty 26-page magnum copious ...... ... and seeing as it looks like we're all doomed to be confined to our tiny hovels for the nest 20 years, we should try to occupy ourselves somehow or other until, er, some future time. So here's something for you to think about ... .... the Robin has three bits of its name that you can colour in ... a harmless task ! .... the top bit of the "R" , the "o" , and the bottom roundy bit of the b . ..So ..which UK bird/birds have/has the biggest " colouring-in" number ? ... tough stuff eh ? ...but here's something tuffer .. if you're up for it ... ... what is the LONGEST UK bird name that can't be coloured in at all ???? ... Crikey !! What a cranium-crunching corollary that is ! ... if the Cliff-lift-Swift actually existed, that could be a candidate. ... but it isn't ..... it was one of many such birds that I invented . 51-the-cliff-lift-swift-and-other-mythical-birds.html ... I'm a prolific old Hector !! And here's Pinkerton's Assorted Colours in all their monochromatic glory ... I was complaining a few posts back about the drastic lack of Waxwings . And the consequence is .... everywhere I go in my little local area I walk past places where I've seen them in the past .... some just holding the odd one or two, some which have had hundreds ..oh yes ! But I've not spotted a single one. Bah. And then I read in the paper that the Capercaillie is declining drastically. As apparently are many other woodland birds. But that Caper news is bad for me ... I've yet to see one. My tentative plan is to "get" Ptarmigan and Caper in a mad dash north .... but it will probably never happen. I'm too old, too decrepit, and insufficiently motivated. But, moving on, the article moves on to the House Sparrow ... ..apparently , since 1966 they have declined by 10.7 million pairs in the UK. ... but on the other hand, in Wales , there's been a 92% increase in H.S numbers from 1995 to 2018. What's going on there then ? Maybe loads of the English ones have scarpered into Wales .... it fits the facts ! I hope they have thought about that. The Headline tells us that Climate Change and Habitat loss is to blame. BUT ...moving on to the larger picture... On Monday 21st, in the early evening, Jupiter and Saturn are going to be VERY close together in the evening sky .. well, they LOOK close together ( 0.1% apart) but of course, Saturn is a lot further away. Have a look in the South-West just after sunset .. it should be best between 4:40 and 6 pm. An event like that has not happened since 1226 !! There was one in 1623 but the UK was in daylight at the time. Here's some relevant links ... -ode-on-not-ticking-the-capercaillie.html 172-a-proper-poem-about-the-capercaillie.html 335-the-waxwing.html 386-the-panorama-not-incorporating-the-wily-waxwing.html 392-waxwings-and-jungle-juice-and-a-cunning-plan.html But now, the music ... Sunday, 5pm, 17h .... Saturn and Jupiter easily seen low in the south from the house
Like this ... S J It will be on view over the next few days ... as long as the skies are clear. The Significant Otter takes part in a Zoom quiz every Thursday. And in one of the rounds each participant brings a question. And this time, she has asked me to set one. So .. I suggested " Which UK bird can be found in almost every bit of the UK ?" Of course, both of my avid readers will know that one. The Significant Otter thought it was the House Sparrow ! Ho-ho !! Or rather, O No ! Anyway, as I ascended to my office/attic/junkheap I thought of this .... If you've worked out what that most "everywhere-est" one is ..... ..... what's the next one down the list ? ..... and the 3rd one down ... etc. ..... I think that's going to take a bit of thinking. .. it's not about "abundance" ... it's about "wide-spread-ness" As I'm writing this, my brain, which is just embarking on its 72nd year, is whizzing round trying to get some reasonable answers. I can almost feel the brain-molecules all racing around in a blind panic ! So ..that should keep you busy for a little while. And there's to be no rushing for the UK Bird Atlas or Googling or any shortcuts. As is often the case, the "quest" is much more rewarding than the "result." Hey ..I've found a band called " All Over The Place" .... and you get to see yet another Welsh pier. Me and the TSO love Llandudno .... I can inflict my Welsh on the natives, for a start .... anyway, here they are..... One of my birthday presents was a tiny book about "mindfulness" and "birdwatching." It certainly made interesting reading. But not always for the right reasons. Here's one of the "things" wot was in it ... BIRD NAMES Success! Got it ! You have identified the bird ... a new one not seen before. Your suspicions had been raised when you glimpsed it in a bush : you had noted the size and colour, the bill shape and wing markings, the way it appeared and behaved ( its "jizz" in the language of birding) ..enough to pin it down later, in the guidebook, and give it a name. The thrill of such a moment is known to every birdwatcher. The need to name things stems from a deep urge to understand the world, which is our home, in all its rich diversity; to recognise and respect other creatures as fellow mortals, and by naming them to acknowledge their unique individuality. Even the earliest writers of the Bible recognised the human need to identify things, believing that God commanded Adam, the first man, to name all the creatures. The human urge to understand the world comes from our not wanting to sleepwalk through life, ignoring the environment that surrounds us as though it was irrelevant to daily life, but instead wishing to be mindful and engaged with the rest of nature. We may also suspect that we have a responsible role to play in the time we have on the planet. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ That's all very well, but there's lots of things I could pick holes in. Partly because we have a deep urge to to pick holes in things, and do lots of other stuff too, like starting and participating in wars and crime and destruction. If he thinks humankind is a good idea .... he might be wrong. I strongly suspect that far more bad than good has been done by the "Human Race" to this Earth of "ours"..... which it isn't. Plus ... all those "creatures" in the bible he mentions ... I reckon they were only bothered about three sorts of animal ..... the ones they can eat. ..... the one they can exploit for their own purposes. .... the ones that are dangerous. The author is full of other wacky ideas ...like going out birdwatching without your binoculars. Apparently we can then "experience the birds around us without magnification, share the scene with them, and we are all, human beings, birds, wind and sky, part of the same living moment. We become more aware of ourselves as part of the world, more mindful of the mystery of our own being." Fairy Nuff .... now here's a bit of music from that Alain Souchon ... .. and while we're at it, "humankind" is entirely the wrong word.
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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