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  1. Gavin Haig

    Caspian Gull,

    Private messages work pretty well on BF...unless of course one prefers to grandstand for the 'public good'.
  2. Gavin Haig

    Caspian Gull,

    Ha ha! Yeah, right. Opinions about what exactly? Did you 'luckily' save the whole blog post by any chance? A bit of context would be nice. Mind you, judging by the various mealy-mouthed comments above, perhaps opinions were not actually what you were after here... Oh how I've missed BF
  3. Gavin Haig

    British Birds - March 2013

    Yes, reading my last post back again it does come over a bit presumptuous doesn't it. Ah well, sorry about that. It certainly wasn't meant to be a slight on anyone's intelligence. Still, 'gripping' is a word I would generally associate with something thrilling and unputdownable. I found it a...
  4. Gavin Haig

    British Birds - March 2013

    With respect, Martin, I doubt the majority of BB readers will find it a 'gripping read'. From your perspective, maybe. Whilst not a scientist I had a pretty decent education, yet found this paper very heavy going, peppered as it is with arcane terminology. That said, it was an eye-opener...not...
  5. Gavin Haig

    British Birds - January 2013

    Absolutely! Yet more arcane terminology to learn. I foresee BF threads comprising photo of aberrant bird followed by much erudite wrangling over exactly what label we should give to the pale and manky specimen! ;)
  6. Gavin Haig

    Icterine Warbler? St Marys, Isles of Scilly, UK (31st August 2012)

    I'm in the Icterine camp. The apparent primary projection is the clincher for me. Enlarging the attached photo shows pixel shades, and where the primaries extend across the leaf silhouette behind, the pixel colours are contiguous with those in the rest of the wing, but not with those of the...
  7. Gavin Haig

    Geese, Surrey

    As I said, Tideliner, my comments were 'loud and opinionated', and clearly ill-considered. I don't know what came over me. You are obviously spot on. PS. Sorry David, I was rooting for you there, but alas....
  8. Gavin Haig

    Geese, Surrey

    Of course, when I say 'Your geese are clearly NOT Greylags' that is just my loud and opinionated judgement. I have often been wrong! ;)
  9. Gavin Haig

    Geese, Surrey

    Well devilbirder, as I quite regularly dip into your blog via Steve Gale's, I know that you are an experienced birder whose ability belies his age, so I am guessing that you took photos in order to add to what you could see through your bins, rather than replace it. I am sure the previous poster...
  10. Gavin Haig

    uk wildfowl

    Agreed. Often a struggle to ID birds from really poor image (no offence capdegat) but download it and enlarge, and Brent subsequently looks the obvious conclusion.
  11. Gavin Haig

    Gull ID - Cornwall

    Agree with Luke. Ratio of argenteus to argentatus in Cornwall has got to be many thousands to one. So, when struggling for for conclusive plumage features, go with the geographical ones! ;)
  12. Gavin Haig

    Something from Uganda

    That was prompt! Thanks very much.
  13. Gavin Haig

    Something from Uganda

    A friend sent me some bird photos taken in Uganda over the last few weeks. I've managed to ID them all from the net except this one, because I don't know what kind of bird it is and evrything I've typed into Google so far has drawn a blank. Needless to say I have no relevant field guide. Please...
  14. Gavin Haig

    Auk ID

    Jamie, sounds like you're in the Raz camp! ;) You should have posted a photo that looked less perfect for Little Auk!
  15. Gavin Haig

    More suppression in Cornwall

    Agreed. Unfortunately though, if someone gets on your 'Sabine's Gull' and corrects the ID before you do the situation is still loaded with defamatory potential! ;) This thread has certainly come a long way in 60-odd posts...
  16. Gavin Haig

    More suppression in Cornwall

    Hear Hear! |=)| Take it easy and be patient, Paul Penzance et al. Soon enough there'll be another rare bird thread that will generate a squirming pile of controversy all by itself without a dead horse like this having to be dragged out for flogging. ;)
  17. Gavin Haig

    Corn bunting or Linnet? (Wallasea Island, UK)

    What an interesting thread! I opened the photo and instantly thought 'Corn Bunting' but was then surprised to read the ensuing debate. Some are 'instantly' seeing Reed Bunting it seems. Apart from the features already outlined above (which presumably fail to convince the pro-Reed camp) has...
  18. Gavin Haig

    County listing

    Devon total at the end of 2009 was 423, and the only new additions that I can think of are the Barolo's Shearwater on Lundy and the poxy Solitary Sandpiper that coincided its visit to my patch with mine to Scilly. So, 425 or thereabouts. A couple less without Lundy... ;)
  19. Gavin Haig

    TWITCHING - Can you afford to go, can you afford NOT to go?

    Like the first poster my twitching days were in another era, but if I were still at it today I wonder whether I would find it prohibitively expensive? I suspect not. Someone mentioned earlier that it's going to depend to an extent on your individual circumstances. Of course it is. Well, I can...
  20. Gavin Haig

    Calling all Bird Bloggers!

    Nice thread you've started here, MB. Thanks to it I've discovered one or two blogs I knew nothing about, but have now bookmarked. I like the way blogs range from the occasional post of this and that, to a full-on diary, perhaps with musings of the writer too. Personally I find blogging both...
  21. Gavin Haig

    Eyebrowed Thrush in Norolk

    Well, obviously! But in terms of what they're doing now, it's right isn't it? And they are therefore contributing to the finding of birds (that others can twitch if they choose) rather than being mindless parasites for the whole of their birding lives as some seem to suggest...
  22. Gavin Haig

    Eyebrowed Thrush in Norolk

    While the gentle BF banter and word use/spelling nit-pickery is (as always) a fun read, I must take issue with a fallacy that keeps cropping up: this notion that big listers spend all their birding time rushing about all over the country, squandering the planet's precious resources. This is...
  23. Gavin Haig

    400 In A Year??

    I suppose it's theoretically possible for virtually anything to turn up virtually anywhere, but there is clearly a kind of 'oasis' effect in operation, wherever you are - even the coast will have hot-spots. But inland, surely it must be more so? Beddington has already been mentioned, and I would...
  24. Gavin Haig

    400 In A Year??

    Owen, if you read that into what Paul has been saying, I'll bet you're the only one who has.
  25. Gavin Haig

    400 In A Year??

    Ah, Kev - you are a man after my own heart! Me too! |=)| And the sooner posters to this thread all agree to allow each to enjoy their birding in their own way without implying one particular approach is 'better' in some way, or (worse!) that the birder employing that approach is 'better' in...
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