News: 1613482022

No egrets? We quail before the stilted pun, although no doubt the bustard who came it with it was crowing about it. One swift question for the benefit of all the culture vultures larking about here: was the pun on "hobby" intended, or just a bonus?

Got your coat? Definitely time to duck out me ol' sparrow.

As the Americans say, tern about is no fowl.

Personally, if I see seabirds in my garden, I obsessively throw rocks at them, on the basis of leaving no tern unstoned.

(Yeah, I know there are 2 other “tern” puns on this page already, but I can’t resist.)

Er... I'm just gonna say always intend your puns.

If this is bird watchers, who are normally quite benign. Imagine what others are doing in the name of self interest. Whilst these people carry on the way they do, we will continue to have our lives restricted.

If birds are your passion then what is £200? (public safety aside).

Seems to me that if you are put off by higher prices then perhaps you are not as into it as you thought (nothing wrong with that of course).

Fines are a way of quantifying risk and can be set against by whatever you stand gain from the fine-incurring activity!

It's a fair point: Is someone who spends £100's worth of petrol to transport £4k's worth of optics and £10k's worth of camera down to Devon likely to be bothered by a £200 fine? The cynic in me would also point out that twitchers tend to be solitary and uncommunicative at the best of times, and hence would be unlikely to get close enough to others to either spread or catch Covid.

I think that the cynic is you is wrong. Twitchers may well tend to introversion, and may try to keep talking to a minimum to avoid scaring more paranoid birds, but we tend to cluster around the places with good lines of sight to the interesting ones, and most of us will try to explain where to look if someone can't spot it.

So Caws for concern then, or are they in for a tweet?

Upvoted.

But [1]I'd take issue with the comment about them tending towards introversion .

[1] https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/environment/video-hundreds-bird-watchers-descend-yorkshire-village-see-rare-siberian-accentor-865596

Making an assumption about twitchers - if there's a rare bird in the offing, then the will flock together - local sighing of some rare hawk, basically blocked the road and there wasn't a spare gap along the hedge. Plus they have their own specialist holiday groups!

Aaiieeee: "Fines are a way of quantifying risk and can be set against by whatever you stand gain from the fine-incurring activity!"

Are you of the opinion that the law is there to be considered only as an inhibition, and that if you are prepared to pay the likely price of transgression then you should go ahead and break it? That does seem to be the attitude of many senior managers in some companies, although they personally rarely face the consequences of their actions.

The point of the lockdown is to save lives (because the 'Test and Trace' system is inadequate to identify likely carriers in time to reduce transmission by self-isolation), so any travel outside your local area potentially puts other people's lives at risk. Yes, I know you put "public safety aside" in your post, but public safety is the point. Maybe increasing the punishment to include a ban on driving for 6 months would get people to take more care.

The fact there is a fine at all sets a quantifiable level of risk to enable us to determine what action we should take in light of it. For some it is an acceptable cost of pursuing their interest.

If you want to stop people taking a certain action they have to choose not to do it when they analyse the cost.. What about 50% of all fixed assets and 30% of income (pre tax) for the next 3 years as a fine? Otherwise you have to physically restrain them. We are free to take whatever decision we see fit, and the consequences that follow.

You are appealing to the common good which may not be the default stance of other people (some twitchers, some senior managers).

For some people the risk of spreading covid is not high on their list of concerns.

Also, I never said I approved.

@ Aaiieeee: "I never said I approved."

Well, do you approve or not?

"We are free to take whatever decision we see fit, and the consequences that follow."

But when the consequences (potentially fatal disease) fall on other people, what then?

Should people go and view this bird? No

Would I encourage them to do so? No

Do I believe it is appropriate or suitable to view the bird? No

Do I respect that they can do whatever they want? Yes

If a member of my family died due to an infected twitcher climbing into my garden, would I approve? No

Can I stop them? No

Can I trust people to do the right thing? No

Can I trust myself to do the right thing? Depends on whose perspective of 'right'

Would I break lockdown rules for a dying friend/relative? Yes

Would I accept the consequence? Yes

Do I believe that staying at home as per govt. guidelines is the correct thing to do? Yes

Yes, there are some things I will do because I believe I must, the twicher felt seeing the bird was in this category so how can I comment? I wouldn't break lockdown to see a bird but some clearly did.

What drives any of us?

The freedom to make bad decisions and take the consequence is entirely my own and I grant that freedom to the twichers too. You would have to physically restrain me otherwise.

"whatever you stand gain from the fine-incurring activity!"

A potentially debititating and possibly fatal disease.

Getting chuffed over seeing a lovely male Wren in the garden (it seems to be favouring my cherry tree at the moment in the morning).

Still it's a nice Tern for the books, and more interesting than the usual Great tits across the road...

Mines the one with the pocket guide to twitching...

"more interesting than the usual Great tits across the road"

You live in Downing St?

Downing St. Is full of tits, but none of them are great at anything.

Isn't "Great tits across the road" a compliment?

Travelling all the way to this place only to find a bunch of tits there instead.

...but maybe they'll catch (sight of) some Co(r)vid as well - an opportunity not to be sniffed (and coughed) at!

"Joke's on them."

Seems appropriate - after all, it's a mocking bird.

Insanity.

Where America is FAR too opened up, Britain is FAR too locked down.

Right now, I can, at my option, go pretty much anywhere in the country. Nobody will stop me, nobody will fine me. Most of those places I could go without a mask, without any serious show of social distancing, without any real hint that anything is different than normal other than noticing some people wearing masks.

In my local area, everything is open. Restaurants, schools, offices, essentially everything. There's a mask "requirement" in that there's theoretically a $50 fine and up to 30 days in jail, but the local cops have announced that they will not enforce it, and they don't tend to wear masks themselves.

It's insane. It's killing lots of people.

Meanwhile the Brits can't even go for a perfectly safe drive. I mean, if you don't leave your car, you cannot conceivable transmit COVID, yet that's banned. Picking up food and eating in the car, banned. Looking at birds, banned.

It's insane. It's not helping anybody.

The people here throwing a fit about wearing a mask and having massive protests about it? Insane. The people there who aren't staging an absolute f-ing revolt about the excessive lockdown? Also insane.

Yes, I live in open country. I could go for a 10 mile walk and not even see anyone else, never mind meet them, yet if I happy to pass some jobsworth constable he'll not only put me at risk by approaching me, he'll fine me for the privilege of risking contamination.

It would be good if people could be trusted to apply common sense, but as we all know it's none too common.

You have to allow for the overcrowding in the UK, especially in the south. Most places in the US you can do something with little chance of finding a crowd, except near the big cities. Anything you want to do in southern England, you have to figure on a couple of thousand people wanting to do the same thing at the same time.

IIn the winter of 1995-1996, I was fortunate enough to have a flock of waxwings congregate in a crab-apple tree in our front garden. They're rare-ish winter visitors in the UK, so we did notice a fair number of people coming along to see them. All were very polite and very careful not to violate our privacy, remaining on the road and not attempting to enter our front garden even though they would probably have got closer and a better camera angle by doing so. When I first saw them (they're a fairly distinctive bird), I was quite worried about being besieged by hordes of anorak wearing twitchers, but in fact people were actually quite polite about it.

Mockingbirds aren't that great to look at, and they're worse to hear. OK they're great mimics, but that's because they're incredibly territorial. Most time they just fly to the corners of their territory and squawk menacingly at the world. Bluejays are noisy too, almost as bad as crows. A cardinal in spring time, that's a bird to listen for.