There seems to be a lot of debate surrounding the merits of punkbirder twaddlespeak at the moment (see here and here). Here’s a brief insight into our experience of using such language on unsuspecting passers-by:
Random passer-by at Cot Valley: what are you looking for?
Me: nothing in particular, we’re just seeing what’s about.
Random passer-by at Cot Valley: that’s nice.
Thor (in Dutch-accented, punkbirder speak): Mega rare!
Random passer-by at Cot Valley: really? Where is that from then?
Thor: America.....
Random passer-by at Cot Valley: really. What colour is it then?
Thor:..or Siberia, hopefully
Random passer-by at Cot Valley (to husband): here - they're looking...what did you call it again? A megalarious? Apparently it's brightly coloured.
Me: hmmm...I don’t think he meant one particularly species...he was referring to rare birds in general.
Random passer-by at Cot Valley: Oh. I see. Well that's a big lens you've got!
Anyway. Needless to say, we didn't find the multi-coloured megalarious, and had to settle for some more more drabbly coloured mesolarious instead:
Found at about 8am in 60 foot cover at Porthgwarra. Also needless to say, given that these photos are really pretty good, Thor took them.
Me: hmmm...I don’t think he meant one particularly species...he was referring to rare birds in general.
Random passer-by at Cot Valley: Oh. I see. Well that's a big lens you've got!
Anyway. Needless to say, we didn't find the multi-coloured megalarious, and had to settle for some more more drabbly coloured mesolarious instead:
See what happens when you don't do the Lizard? You see some half decent birds! I think I've seen that random passer-by before..... By the way, did you submit the Lesser Scaup?
ReplyDeleteYes indeed. Just returned from the Scillies where Thor and I clinched the Pied Wheatear, although Thor deserves pretty much all of the credit for that.
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