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Thursday 27 December 2012

Well said Slap. Here`s to the other channel!

The Lunatic Fringe - Why did Mr Watkins say it was the Lunatic Fringe? does he think we are that stupid to think he meant anything else! of course he was pointing the finger at us!
Suppression _ those that know me ,know that I am against suppression! 
Clive , we know you are going to read this, along with all the others who say they never come to visit this blog, but do, you know who you are!!
 Who started it off is a mystery. But has to congratulated for hotting up another shite Xmas! Well done!
 I have nowt against you as a person, I ,along with many think you are ok as a bloke, but when you are`nt  going to share it with toggers on here and blab about it on the other channel you asked for it!
IF YOU CARE THAT MUCH ABOUT THE OWLS THEN KEEP QUIET ABOUT IT!

AS Slap has said, the report was full of mistakes and photo`s were ruined.
What I would love to know is why Slaps Little Owl shot never made it? It was a superb shot of little Owl.
One of the obvious mistakes were that there were no known breeding records of Little Owl! I almost pmsl when I saw that one!! The blogs were littered with photo`s of Juvs! I could go on and on and on.

12 comments:

tiger said...

who cares about Sheffield Wmetgy71tednesday ??

Steve Hinton said...

Time to change those tablets Cliff!

tiger said...

You re right boyo, prob caught the keyboard with my elbow !

Richard G. Smith said...

Steve / Nigel
Before things get muddied any further (hopefully Snipe will concur)I can throw some light on the points that each of you have made.
1. If there are no records on the database - meaning that none were submitted or submitted records were missed, then Little Owl breeding would not be reported.
2. Sightings from anyone made on Blogs are NOT picked up by databases - for obvious reasons.
3 Nigel's wonderful shots of Little Owl were included in the page mock ups that I selected and sent to Snipe. Unfortunately the size was insufficient to be converted to a printed picture that he would have been happy with. When I asked for a higher resolution image one could not be supplied.
3 A number of images have been distorted to a greater or lesser degree by the printer acting alone. The page mock ups sent to Snipe were perfectly measured to suit the new page size. A method of avoiding this in future will be to call for a proof of the pictorial content for approval ahead of printing. Snipe may well have done this had he not had to personally write the majority of the report himself unaided.
4. Regarding comments e.g 'crap photos'I presume you are referring to shots of rarities in flight at distance, old shots being copies of prints taken 30 years ago or even shots that appear darker or lighter than expected. The inclusion of the former are often the only photographic record we have - copies of old prints, previously not published,serve to show the advantage of digital photography today where a large number of toggers exist producing high quality images. However in a printed form we are still at the mercy of some gremlins within the various systems in reproduction.
In conclusion there is no conspiracy - records that are not submitted correctly are rightly ignored, satisfactory photographs submitted are used but we cannot hope to reproduce BB or BW quality all the time, perhaps not even some of the time, working to a tight budget.
I would urge all toggers to support the database of images over the coming years - Editors / volunteers will do their best to promote birding in general in our region with whatever material is submitted for use.
So lets wipe the slate clean understand what the limitations are and enjoy our togging.

Slaphead said...

Rich,

personally speaking I could'nt give a rats arse if my little owl shot/s was/were used or not,I did not raise nor have I raised that point. However,to put the record straight,the shots I sent to you via email were straight out of the camera,that is unedited and in large files.....maybe someone is getting confused with file sizes?

Little owls are not the only species that are in error by the way,there are more.

Anyway,lines in sand and all that perhaps? (perhaps not :-o)

Must fly,I'm off to visit the outlaws in Ingerlund.

Steve Hinton said...

Well that`s sorted then.
Goodbye Glamorgan Bird Club!!
Unfortunately there will always be us (the baddies) and them (the goodies)

Must fly got to wash my beard!

Din_V said...

Personally, I've seen continuous comments on here bashing Clive, both general taking the piss out of him and his sightings. You tell him to keep quiet about owls yet nobody is told to pipe down with the insults and snide remarks.
Everyone here shares a love of the same beautiful creature, so use this site for that. Clive has an email address which I'm sure he'll be decent enough to read what you have to say via.

Steve Hinton said...

Dear Din, We`ve all been here before!
Clive is out of order, it was his snide remark that started it! He should have sent Roo an email and that would have been that rather than sarcastically blab on about it!
We explained all this to a relative of yours.
I thought Clive and myself were mates, but from what I can gather from other birders I upset him by obtaining close shots of the Owls and yet the best shot i`ve seen, meaning the closest, is Clive`s!
We all know he is out at first light and out more often than most and plugs away at his patch!
I did Aberthaw for 15 years putting in as much time as possible. I did manage a couple of good birds in 20 years!
The fact Clive has found ten times what I, or any birder ever found in 2 years.
When this number of birds are found without anyone else seeing them or photographed leaves birders thinking is it possible to see all that in Glamorgan. He has found more in a couple of sq.miles than what`s found in the southern half of the uk!
Reputations then begin to be doubted!
The best thing Clive should do is photograph them and phone people immediately.
I appologise for being `to the point` but it is a fact!
Get out there find the rares and let people know and Proove it!
For someone who is out so often is sure to find the birds. I proved that myself!
I am only saying what a lot of others are thinking and hope he doesn`t take it to heart!

Christina_Iles said...

To the point; this site has become a photography competition instead of one to share information. People post their photographic evidence and it still receives disrespectful comments.
You can't say people should do this and that when it's clearly not your personal priority.
Clive photographs and reports his sightings yet they still get brushed off because this blog has given him the reputation of being a liar and saying that he lives on "cloud cuckoo land". The people who do it know who they are and these comments are even more proof that your blog isn't being used for reporting your sightings.
As for giving an explanation to a relative of mine, none of them come here or know you.
I solely come here for the photographs, as photography and wildlife are huge parts of my life. I'll no longer be using this site as it's priorities are all wrong.

Steve Hinton said...

Amen and hallelujah!

Jeff said...

Hi Christina,
I'll not get dragged into the Clive debate as I count him as a good friend and have enjoyed days out in the field with Clive over the years,as far as I am concerned he is a damn good,enthusiastic birder who certainly puts the time in on his local patch.
Whether or not people believe Clive's sightings is a matter for them.
As Gary Player once very famously said "the more I practice,the luckier I get",the same adage applies to birding,the more time you spend covering a local patch the more birds you will find.
Clive certainly deserves to find good birds with the time he puts in and good luck to him in doing so.
This blog is not run exclusively for the posting of bird sightings but is all things to all people,some post sightings on here but most including myself will post sightings on the GBC sightings page where people go to find that information.
If I am going outside the county I will check other websites such as Brecknock,Carmarthenshire,Pembrokeshire,Severnside etc and of course Birdguides for information.
I am fortunate in being part on a text group like many who use this blog so information of a rare or interesting bird is instant where a mobile signal allows.
I like several other "toggers" use this blog to post photos and there are some very good photographers posting on this blog.
Blogs would certainly be very boring without photographs !
I am friends with the other "toggers" who post and we both compliment and ridicule eachother which is all part of the fun,unlike other blogs we do not take ourselves particularly seriously,again all part of the fun.
As Steve mentioned previously we certainly do seem to cop the flack unfairly for any trouble on the "other channel" but this blog certainly gets a huge volume of hits so for varying reasons people must find it interesting.
As you said you enjoy coming on here to look at the photographs so please continue to do so and good luck and best wishes for your birding in the coming New Year.

Jeff

Randal M Snowdrop said...

Well said Jeff. It's not often that I comletely disagree with just about everything Jeff has to say but on this occasion I have to agree with my previous sentiments on the subject and once again choose to ignore his opinion, pretty much from the opening line (I have a similar policy with regard his identification of tern species).

With regard the subject matter at hand. The facts and statistics speak for themselves.

If a sightings page(s) wishes to support these sightings then let them do so. They only dilute the validity of every other record they also publish in doing so.