Tannin
Common; sedentary.
Here is the situation:
You got up at 5:30AM on a Sunday, drove 200 kilometres in the dark to find some birds you don't normally see, coped with your scope frosting up in the early morning cold, waded miles up the side of a little estuary getting your boots full of very cold, wet mud, and always hoping that, just around the next corner there would be a rather special bird, and then .... at last .... you got some shots you are really, really happy with. Lots of great shots.
Then, fighting off your fatigue because you don't usually get out of bed before about 9:30 at the earliest, and because you were up late the night before, and because the last thing you feel like doing is driving all the way home, you stay awake for all of the 200 kilometres back again.
Finally, you are home and, having (just!) managed to force yourself to put the kettle on first, you pop the flash card into your reader.
Nothing.
It's blank.
empty...
You check your other cards in case you got them mixed up (cause there is stuff on the other cards too, but its not as good as the stuff on this card), you hit "refresh" 49 times with your fingers crossed and your heart in your mouth, you pull it out and put it back in again, you reboot the computer, you try reading it in the camera instead of in the the flash card reader.
It's still blank.
You got up at 5:30AM on a Sunday, drove 200 kilometres in the dark to find some birds you don't normally see, coped with your scope frosting up in the early morning cold, waded miles up the side of a little estuary getting your boots full of very cold, wet mud, and always hoping that, just around the next corner there would be a rather special bird, and then .... at last .... you got some shots you are really, really happy with. Lots of great shots.
Then, fighting off your fatigue because you don't usually get out of bed before about 9:30 at the earliest, and because you were up late the night before, and because the last thing you feel like doing is driving all the way home, you stay awake for all of the 200 kilometres back again.
Finally, you are home and, having (just!) managed to force yourself to put the kettle on first, you pop the flash card into your reader.
Nothing.
It's blank.
empty...
You check your other cards in case you got them mixed up (cause there is stuff on the other cards too, but its not as good as the stuff on this card), you hit "refresh" 49 times with your fingers crossed and your heart in your mouth, you pull it out and put it back in again, you reboot the computer, you try reading it in the camera instead of in the the flash card reader.
It's still blank.