Rule of 6 obviously does not apply to twitchers, FFS.
On the same subject, the BBC’s initial report…
Jeezus fucking christ on a bike, it looks nothing like a Rufous-tailed Bush Robin (the alternative name and the one I would normally use) it isn’t even in the same fucking family!
I give up. 
(In case you’re wondering, the pic the BBC used is a Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler)
Nice to see someone keeping the standard of ranting up. Good effort !
VB
Well, they deserve it. How hard is it to get someone who has some idea to proof read the bloody thing?
Someone at the BBC is trolling the birders.
“Gannet colony is thriving” (Put up picture of Herring Gull)
“Cormorants at risk from oil spill” (Put up picture of Heron)
“Ospreys breeding successfully” (Put up picture of Golden Eagle)
“Only 20 shopping days to Christmas” (Put up picture of Robin)
“Great Tits spotted at nature reserve” (Get sack from BBC)
Anyone could do it!
Cold Northerly wind here today. It really felt like winter had arrived, then I got home to find this snow bunting in the garden.
“Reed Warbler spotted in Fetlar” (BBC)
and most will be males over 60. You’d think they’d have heard of Darwin.
Maybe they don’t see themselves as finches. (How wrong can you be ?)
VB
I get that if a genuinely rare bird pops up somewhere twitchers flock (sic) it see it. But a bird that has lost its way and is relatively common in other parts of the world seems a bit pointless, much that it is interesting.
But that’s the point, they’re rare in Britain and that’s why they want it on their British “list”
Fishing has gone the same way especially with carp angling - all about the competition to ‘bag the biggest’ and totally misses the point. They even import the carp and feed them up in special lakes these days. Humans are quite stupid often.
Often ffs
Hurting fish for fun is pretty retarded no matter how you go about it.
How long before we have convincing artifical fish ? Clay pigeons seem to work, and clockwork hares in a sense, but I can’t see clay gudgeon being a success. I remember my kid brothers having something like this (although the title belongs in the @Jim’s jokes thread)
VB
Yeah, fishing will never go away so long as morons continue to insist that fish experience no pain, no fear, no suffering &c when they have a sharpened pin rammed through their mouthparts and are then hauled into a deadly alien environment.
So great is the cognitive dissonance involved that according to its participants this positively contributes to nature conservation…
The fishing thread is that way —> Angling - watcha caught?
Your trolling wil be more effective there. Calling @Wayward
He’s just casting out
We’ve already had this exchange over on the angling thread…
I’m not making any excuses, or saying that fish don’t feel any pain, or any of the other shite that anglers come out with to defend the frankly indefensible. However, and I dont get out and go much these days, I’ve gone out fishing since I was a kid and I still love it, even if I’m sometimes conflicted. There is simply nothing like (f’rinstance) sitting by a river at dusk, when you have to hold the rod because its too dark to see the bites. Every one of your senses is turned up to ten and you start to feel little trembles through the line as fish feeding around your bait fan the bottom with their tails and disturb little bits of gravel which knock the line. You are aware that the weight has just moved but it happens so quickly that the rod being nearly pulled out of your hand as the next in a sequence of events - involving 30 yards of line being ripped from your reel, the ensuing battle and finally to crouch there shaking as you peel back the folds of your net to look at your prize barbel - can only be picked apart later, over and over until you can go again.
I’ve been obsessed by fishing for large chunks of my life and there is nought like it. The best stress reliever ever, even if you catch nothing and sometimes, sometimes, it is so exciting it is better than sex or drugs, or both! 
I couldn’t give it up even though I know its bad.
Flock of 140,000 knot creates new record.
