Congratulations!

We live in an age of hyperbole and exaggerated responses to everything. A culture where a sandwich can be ‘awesome’ and where people exclaim ‘OMG’ at the most mundane of revelations. And birding is not immune to this kind of nonsense. Only the other day on Birdforum I saw at least two posts saying ‘well done!’ and ‘congratulations!’ to someone on ‘connecting’ with the Thick-billed Warbler on Shetland.

Yes, I’m sure he was delighted and relieved to have seen the bird, but ‘congratulations’? Really? I’d be embarrassed if someone said that to me if I’d found it, let alone just twitched it. ‘Nice find’ or a jokey ‘good skills’ perhaps, but even finding a rare bird is largely a matter of luck combined with being able to remember the relevant field characters correctly and comparing them with what you can see. A trained Chimpanzee could probably do it with a bit of practice.

Twitching requires even less skill than that, simply the ability to be able to read and follow directions on a pager, phone or website, sufficient money and time to get to the site before the bird buggers off, and then (in the case of the Thick-billed Warbler) the good fortune to be standing in the right place and looking in the right direction when it flies past on the 27th organised flush. All good fun, and I’ve done my fair share of it, but not in any way an ‘achievement’ of any kind, or worthy of congratulations. Unless you’re a Chimpanzee, of course.

If we’re going to start congratulating people on a successful twitch, the next logical step is sending cards. Maybe someone like funkymoonpigeon.com might be interested in a few ideas (thanks to Mark Reeder for the Lancey photo)...

 

 

A Mega Rare

We haven’t had a song for a while, so here’s something appropriate to the season. With apologies for abusing one of Simon & Garfunkel’s best songs...

Semi-P Plovers,
And harriers, or falcons, whatever,
I've got my credit card
Here in my hand.

So I read the latest Birding World,
And ate lasagne pies,
And drove off
To look for a mega rare.

"Frankly", I said,
As we boarded the Skybus at Land’s End,
“Sumburgh seems like a dream to me now.”
It took me four days
To ID a Sanderling
I thought that it was a mega rare.

Laughing on the bus,
Making claims, ticking races,
He said the man in the loafers and suit
Dipped at Cley.
I said, "Be careful,
He’s recently purchased a camera."

"Toss me that Duivendijk,
I think it’s there in my raincoat.
I saw this warbler an hour ago.”
“Have you looked at the scapulars?
They should be olive-green”,
Then the bird flew over an open field.

"Bugger, I've lost it", I said,
And I thought about cheating.
"I'm tempted to fake it, but
I don't know why."

Counting the dudes
Watching New Grimsby Turnstones
They've all come
To look for a mega rare,
All come to look for a mega rare,
All come to look for a mega rare.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Specially for Archie. I've tried to make this as simple as possible, but I think it covers everything? Again, click on it to see it bigger, unless you have some sort of weird insect eyes and are able to read it like this. (edit - actually Blogger doesn't show it at the original size even when you click on it, so apologies if it's still hard to read!)

P.S. I forgot to mention that this flowchart is for entertainment only, and you use it entirely at your own risk. Terms and conditions apply, your list may go down as well as up, etc, etc.

Much Sniping in the Marsh

Predictably, the Great Great Snipe Debate is now underway on BirdForum, Twitter, Facebook etc. And the positions being taken are all very predictable too. So to save a lot of hot air and time that could be better spent birding, here’s a simple flowchart to help you decide your response in cases like this (click to see it full size):

My Theory

My theory, which belongs to me, is as follows.... This is how it goes.... The next thing I am going to say is my theory. Ready?

My theory, by L. Llama (Mr). This theory goes as follows and begins now:

There are a lot of skuas in the North Sea at the moment, and it's going to rain this afternoon, so there might be one at Rutland Water.

That is my theory that is mine and belongs to me and I own it and what it is, too. Unlike the rest of this post, which is entirely stolen from a Monty Python sketch:

UPDATE:

After extensive observations at Rutland Water this afternoon, by myself and others, the number of skuas passing through per hour was conservatively estimated to be zero, thus proving the theory to be, in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, a load of foetid dingo's kidneys. However, some consolation was provided by a juv Pec Sand on Lagoon 3 and later in South Arm 3, and a couple of Curlew Sands and Little Stints on the island.

Next Generation Birders

A frequent talking point amongst those of us of a certain age is the lack of young birders these days. When I was in my 20s there were loads of us; now I only know one proper birder under 30 in Leicestershire, and not many more under 40, although there are no doubt some I haven’t met.

So it was pleasing to learn recently that there is a group calling themselves Next Generation Birders. They have a Facebook group with 85 members and a blog, although that doesn’t seem to have been updated recently!

They describe themselves as “a group of young people aged 13-25 who have been brought together by a passion for all things nature, particularly birdwatching. Originally starting as a Facebook group we are now branching out in order to share our birdwatching experiences, and passing our knowledge (what little we have!).”

I’m not sure what happens when you get to 25 – maybe you get kicked out and take to moaning about how things aren’t as good as they were in your day?

Anyway, I was asked by the group recently if I could design a logo for them, which of course I was delighted to do. After coming up with a few different ideas, they unanimously chose this design as their new logo: