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...and with friends like that...

When I was considering retiring to somewhere I could seawatch regularly (I ended up staying in Bedfordshire where the seawatching isn’t great), I thought about creating a multi-headed tripod, with observation binoculars (15x80 or similar) up on top in the natural position to rest your eyes...

Naval attaché in North Korea?

Yeah, they might be fine with the skip and the jump, but can they manage the hop as well, Ken?

In theory, proofreading is a good idea. In practice, you tend to read what you thought you’d written, not what you actually wrote ;)

Could the fact that ‘d’ is next to ‘s’ on a QWERTY keyboard have something to do with it? Finger diet in order? Edit: or proofreading.

Sorry, it’s late and I’m trying to browse the interweebs and write a few comments about Lammergeiers while watching cricket highlights (who says blokes can’t multitask - Oh, apparently I can’t). Anyway, it took me several seconds to realise this was a joke. After all, it’s the right time of...

Sorry, should have looked at the photo, shouldn’t I ;) Little Paxo (good site). 13th so recent.

When and where was the Norfolk Hawker, Doghouse? Still trying to get one in Bedfordshire (everyone else seems to have done so), but thought I’d blown it for this year. Might give a Felmersham another go if they’re still flying, though by now there’ll be all the Brown Hawkers to distract me :(

I was about to say that a lot of things had been early this year, but then I checked back and saw the date was in May. Not that early ;) Fairly amazed no record of Willow Em in VC11. We’ve had them in Beds for several years - thought they’d got all over by now, though I suppose they do have a...

Surely you mean Wussy Gull. (Which is probably what they look like when encountering Ivory Gulls ;)) Edit: New question - what size of skua can stand up to an Ivory Gull?

Historically RBA was primarily a pager-based service and Birdguides was primarily web-based, which accounted for the difference in pricing. As time went by RBA added web services and Birdguides introduced phone text alerts. At that time RBA pager news almost always arrived before Birdguides text...

Seriously, I think we can all agree that some of the old names were better than their replacements, but some of the new names are also good, and sometimes better than the old ones. Ideally a name should be concise, descriptive and mellifluous. Rosy Starling scores over Rose-coloured on two...

Unmentionable Harrier, because all records need to be suppressed to prevent persecution ;) (There are certain sites where the locals might apply the same adjective to many other species ;))

Don’t come here spoiling things with your facts ;) On another note, I actually quite like “Ubiquitous Storm-petrel”. Just wish it was a bit more ubiquitous in Britain, particularly inland Britain. After all, if you can get a Great Shearwater in Milton Keynes...

Oh, certainly, Wren on its own is only appropriate in Europe. However, when Trump causes the final collapse of the USA and you have to rejoin the Empire, one of the first measures we will enforce (after driving on the left), is the re-naming of all American sparrows to buntings ;)

Yes, not all the “new” names were bad, and Rosy Starling is excellent, concise and descriptive. I’ve also always rather liked Hedge Accentor, even though it generally hasn’t replaced Dunnock, which is at least briefer, though Accentor sounds more exotic. With you on BLM. Coming out of the...

We had a big attempted re-naming of English bird names here in the UK a few years ago, including trying to impose some Americanisms (“Winter Wren” for our sole Wren species, anyone). Hardly any are used. In many cases “Common”, “Northern”, “European” or “Eurasian” was simply tacked onto the...

I don’t know about being able to afford that camera/lens, but I certainly couldn’t carry it any more. ;(

...and we all thought Leonardo da Vinci was dead. (That sketch really deserves a like.)