Sunday, January 21, 2007

It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how

More things Martin does not recommend.

Holding up the cup and the milk and the cake and these books, and the fish and the rake. The toy ship, a little toy man, and with my tail I can hold a red fan. Fanning with the fan as I hop on the ball. But that is not all. Oh no, that is not all....

It was bound to end in disaster - I read it in a book. Please send cards and flowers to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Fell on your Head Unit.

While I'm on the subject, other things Martin doesn't recommend almost certainly include:
Green Eggs and Ham
Tweetle Beetles.

But to business. I was FINALLY up to a bit of light birding. The emergency medical quarantine squad have stood down... bits of my spleen have signed contracts with the Ministry of Defence, probably, and Birdspotting lay before me today like the odour of myrrh, like sitting under a sail in a good wind, like the home that a man longs to see after years spent as a captive. But I could have picked a better day for it. Chilly. Plan A was to find a big congregation of gulls. Disaster! Couldn't find any. Options now limiting, cos there weren't any other birds around either. A Common Redshank on the beach, and a small flock of Common Eiders offshore. OK then let's sort out this borealis Eider nonsense. I've never got my head round borealis Eiders, but suddenly it seems like everyone is seeing them. Or at least they're on BirdGuides every flipping day. I can do that too. In fact today I had 5 Common Eiders with bright orange/yellow tones in their bills, two with obvious 'sails' (I assumed these were long scaps though BWP says they're tertials) courting a reddish female. How easy is that? :-) I'm certain they're ALL local breeders and not borealis at all. Maybe if someone could show me a real borealis I might see the error of my ways.

Proper birding soon. Meanwhile remember... when beetles battle beetles in a puddle paddle battle and the beetle battle puddle is a puddle in a bottle... they call this a tweetle beetle bottle puddle paddle battle muddle.

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