36 years in science communication
We’ve done a lot of digging this year…me with the pond and half the allotment and Mrs Sciencebase the other half of the allotment. On a misty Sunday morning in November, there was still digging to be done and a few peas to be shelled for a sweet snack, but I opted to snap
We went looking for Short-eared Owls again at Burwell Fen having heard from a friend that there were “twitchers” huddled together spotting them earlier in the week. We have been to the Fen a few times this year, but not seen the owls since February. However, I learn from local birding expert Hedley Wright that one of last winter’s “flock” (we had more than six there last Winter) had spent its summer on the Fen too presumably having decided not to return to Scandinavia for the breeding season for some reason.
Anyway, we saw a Kingfisher dart back and forth along the almost dry ditch in the middle of the Fen and then Mrs Sciencebase was first to spot one in the distance close to the electric power installation on the edge of Burwell. And, then a second. There were several bird photographers around, but I wouldn’t describe any of them as “twitchers” and maybe not even “birders” as such, there is a distinction (see my birding glossary).
There have been sightings of more than one SEO since the end of October 2019, and yesterday (10th November), it seemed that there were perhaps three or maybe four. We never saw two at a time, but were aware of two in the air while another was out of sight in the scrub a few hundred metres in front of us.
Two of the owls were forced aloft by Rooks at different times. Rooks really don’t like raptors and owls in their territory and will harangue, harry, and harass them endlessly to get them to move on. One of the SEOs has a very apparent feather injury to one wing.
I’ve mentioned Burwell and Tubney Fens previously, depending how you approach them, they are the back end of the NT Wicken Fen area. The semi-feral Konik ponies (Equus ferus caballus) of Polish descent there along with longhorn cattle (Bos primigenius) and European roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), are natural managers of the scrub.
The area is almost perfect roosting and hunting for Short-eared Owls, which have once again returned from Scandinavia to the Fen for their winter break.
There were three to four showing quite well and being harried and harangued by Rooks on the wing high above the fen.
I don’t think any of the clutch of photographers (Homo sapiens phoographiensis) photographing the birds got any particularly close views, but there’s the rest of the winter to try before the birds fly back to their summer breeding grounds next March.
It’s one hundred years since the first Remembrance Sunday was held to mark the first anniversary since the ending of World War I. As ever, we were there to attend in our Sunday best with our poppies worn with pride.
Pleasant enough evening and as we didn’t get to North Norfolk as originally planned to see the Red Knot on the high tide, I headed to our local housing estate balancing pond hoping to see a few Starlings bedding down at dusk in the reed beds there. And, they were, not quite murmuration numbers as there had been at this time last year, maybe half a dozen small flocks of 25-50 birds.
Our local primary school which taught both of our children has done a wonderful Remembrance tribute.
You can see my photos of their very different tribute from 2018 in the photo section of the Sciencebase blog here.
After three decades in the writing-editing trade, you get to recognise how language evolves. New words come into fashion and then fade away, some of them stick, some of them even end up being added to major dictionaries, at least in the online version and then quietly forgotten if they’re not deemed fit for the print version.
Grammar changes too. Split infinitives no longer need to boldly go anywhere; they’re fine. In fact, they always were. Usage goes through transitions and in the intermediate times between the old format and the new becoming fully adopted ambiguity reigns.
For instance, far fewer people use fewer when they mean less than they ever did…or is it the other way round less people use fewer less? Either way, the amount of people using less instead of fewer has risen. But, only if you imagine weighing all those people en masse and giving the quantity as a weight rather than actually counting them. The number of people. It’s the NUMBER OF PEOPLE. Not the amount!
But, why is that? Why do so many people seem to say “the amount of people”, when grammatically speaking the “number” is correct and “amount” just plain wrong? Why do fewer and fewer people say “fewer” when they mean less. Fewer people, not less (unless, again, you’re weighing them in bulk, or perhaps pureeing them all and measuring the total volume)?
I think the bottom line is that using the correct grammar sounds too posh and nobody but posh people want to sound posh, so the incorrect grammar becomes the common vernacular so that the non-posh sound common and the common or garden posh can affect non-poshness.
It doesn’t explain why everyone now also talks with an inquisitive inflection at the end of a statement in that Australian soap opera style. It’s as if they are unsure of themselves? And have to put some doubt into their tone? As if they’re only making an assertion gently? And, not stating something “robustly”? Or, maybe it does, maybe affecting an inferiority complex also makes one sound less affected, less posh. After all, truly posh people commonly have a superiority complex, even though we’re all born equal regardless of land rights an offshore inheritance tax avoidance schemes.
Conversely, starting a sentence with the word “So, ” makes you sound like you think you are superior. It implies that the listener should take as read all the inherent knowledge and wisdom about the subject under discussion and that if you don’t have that mentally to hand, then, well, you’re not worthy of hearing what comes after the “So, “.
So, it’s number of people, not amount, you cannot talke of less people, it’s fewer, unless they’re shrinking or you discussing weight loss and people en masse. And, why is it “water cannon”, singular? As if we’re discussing giraffe on the Serengeti rather than several vehicles with an abhorrent way of dispersing a crowd?
Robust answers on a postcard going forward, please…
Visiting our daughter in the North East will usually find us dragging her somewhere coastal. This time it was Druridge Bay in my home county of Northumberland. One of the most glorious places and one that has special childhood memories for not least family caravan holidays in Amble at the north end and Cresswell and Cambois at the south.
Also, first demo/festival/benefit I attended (aged 10) was to protest against plans to build a nuclear power station there. We blocked that, but I see now that they’re hoping to exploit this beautiful and wild place by opening an open-cast coalmine. FFS.
Meanwhile, the birds are blissful in their ignorance of the mankind’s machinations: Bar tailed Godwit, Barnacle Goose, Blackbird, Black-headed Gull, Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Common Scoter, Cormorant, Curlew, Eider, Goldfinch, Great-crested Grebe, Herring Gull, Jackdaw, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Magpie, Marsh Tit, Oystercatcher, Pheasant, Pink-footed Goose, Red-throated Diver, Redshank, Reed Bunting, Rook, Sanderling, Shelduck, Sparrowhawk, Starling, Stonechat, Turnstone, Wren…it’s possible I’ve overlooked a couple of others.
Fighting hard against low light levels the whole time, we departed just as the rain started and trip to St Mary’s Island and Lighthouse was scuppered by weather and high tide.
Life on the Fen Edge
— With Sir David Attenbradley –
from the BBC, the British Bradcasting Corporation
EPISODE 1: I HEARD A MURMUR
EPISODE 2: GOLDFINCH DYNASTY
EPISODE 3: YOUNG PEOPLE’S BEAT COMBO
EPISODE 4: CUMULUS
Had a short visit, via a circuitous A14 diversion to Grafham Water reservoir while the sun was shining, drove home in the rain. Intriguingly, there was a warning sign about not swimming and needed higher-spec buoyancy aids because the water is aerated and so, presumably, of lower, less buoyant density than normal water. Anyway, a few photos. Not of the sign.
Birdlife ticked on the morning; Tufted Duck, Great Black-backed Gull, Greylag Goose, Mandarin, Shelduck, Linnet, Robin, Wren, Starling, Stonechat, Meadow Pippet, Yellowhammer, Redwing, Goldfinch, Blackbird, Jackdaw, Rook, Mute Swan, Common Buzzard (9 together!), Pied Wagtail, Kestrel, Red Kite, House Sparrow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Cormorant…Swallows (two, still actively feeding/drinking!)
Three species of butterfly: Small Tortoiseshell, European Peacock, Large White.