The whole of today was taken up meeting Ille from Stansted, with a train to London Waterloo, Underground to Victoria and the Easy-Bus to the airport, so with just a little time to spare maybe I should address a query received from more than one of our overseas readers.
Remarkably, this Blog now reaches readers in at least 17 countries, making it increasingly difficult to write so that everyone will understand what I'm on about. In recent Posts there has been mentioned of both 'Twitching' & 'Twitcher' which has resulted in a number of requests to explain. While no lines or demarcations are draw, you can belong to either one of these groups or be part of both. The 2 are usually defined as 'Birders' and 'Twitchers', with most having been part of both during some part of their 'birding' life. In essence, a 'Birder' is one who, when time allows, will enjoy the general search for birds both common and rare, while on the other hand an 'ardent Twitcher' will simply stay in the comfort of their home, armed with a 'bird alert pager', telephone etc and simply await news of the arrival of a rare bird they need for their 'list'. On receipt of such information, they'll jump into their BMW, set the Tom-Tom with coordinates supplied by the 'alert company', zoom off at high speed hoping to gaining even the briefest glimpse of the target bird. This latter description is something of an exaggeration, as I doubt there is anyone who does this exclusively, but hope this gives the reader an idea of what it's all about? The word 'Twitch/er' was devised to describe the feeling of euphoria, anticipation and prospect of disappointment once information has been received and the chase begun. I for one have been on both sides of the track, and doubt there is a serious 'birder' who has never experienced this condition. These days I like to be known as a 'Birder' so you can imaging my reaction when, interviewed for our local newspaper, emphasising both this and spelling out my name as BAGSY to the reporter, to find next day the caption reading "BUGSY the TWITCHER said".
Probably an insignificant bit of local history, but something I found of great interest when I visited a mates house in the week which in part involved Royal Navy hero Jack Mantel.
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Leading Seaman Jack Mantel was grievously wounded during the enemy attacks and several others members of his gun crew had been killed but he continued to operate his pom-pom 'until, as the last enemy plane departed, he fell from his post'. The ship was on fire and eventually sank the following day. This was the first Royal Navy VC of the war and the only award for valour in Home Waters, in addition to this Leading Seaman Mantel had already been awarded the 1939-45 Star, Atlantic Star plus the 1939-45 War Medal.
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23-00 and we're home, with a large Macallan single malt, Pink Floyd's Pulse on the DVD and no need to get up early for work Paradise! - Good Night.