12 January 2008

GOSh! How entertaining

Bagged a few Siskins this morning and a Merlin this afternoon, but you don't wanna hear about that, so I'll move swiftly onto the real entertainment,... The GOS AGM. Oh! How much fun can you have in an evening? For those that didn't attend, basically, the AGM consisted of about 100 non-birders (interspersed with a smattering of people who actually go birding) arguing over bird names (yes, that's right, the argument we had throughout the rest of the UK about 15 years ago). It was hilarious and, by the end of proceedings, the camp that started the evening not having heard of the BOU, having no grasp of taxonomy and who wouldn't know a Common Redpoll if it landed on their 50 year old bins, had won the day. You can now look forward to the next report containing such gems as 'Jenny Wren (Winter Wren)', 'Oooh, that difficult brown one (Cetti's Warbler)' and 'Big Seagull (Larus sp.)'.

Perhaps GOS should make up their minds, are their publications for people who are ignorant of all things relating to birds/birding or are they aimed at a slightly more ornithologically educated readership? If the former, perhaps a name change is in order (perhaps drop the 'O') or perhaps a new Gwent Bird Club is needed to cater for people that are actually birders?

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