Another meme

I don't even know what meme means.

Anyway, I've been tagged by Richard of the eponymous Birding Diary (note: I didn't know what eponymous meant until I wanted to buy the R.E.M. album of that name):

1. Write your own six word memoir

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you like.

3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere

4 .Tag five more blogs with links

5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

My memoir is:

Red hair: I'm a genetic aberration

I'll tag: Pluvialis, Mike, McKinney, Malc and his pigs, and Amila.

Meme

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people

"Moult. Adults have two moults each year, the 'spring' moult (mainly Jan-Apr) which produces summer plumage, and the 'autumn' moult (mainly Aug-Nov) which produces winter plumage. The spring moult is partial (head, body and variable amount of inner wing-coverts), and the autumn moult is complete (including wings and tail). Waders thus change their body plumage twice each year, but the wing- and tail-feathers only once."

I was tagged by Pluvialis. Rather predictably, it's the Collins Bird Guide which is sitting closest to my computer. I suppose I could have cheated and chosen something more intellectual, like Svensson, or er, the 2008 AA Pub Guide, but it's the truth.

In turn, I'm going to tag: Weedon of Weedon's World, Old Scrote, Malc on the Edge of Nowhere, Tom McKinney and Charlie Moores.

Music

I saw a meme on someone's blog the other day. Can't remember whose, but the subject was 'first 20 songs to play on random shuffle on your iPod/computer/other music-playing device':

1. The Saturday Option - Lambchop
2. Waiting For Nothing - Sparklehorse
3. He was dressed in shirt of doe-skin - Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, Welsh National Opera
4. Orange Wedge - Chemical Brothers
5. What If We Give It Away? - R.E.M.
6. Pop Song 89 - R.E.M.
7. B + A - Beta Band
8. I Know - Beta Band
9. Cat On The Wall - PJ Harvey
10. This Corrosion - Lambchop
11. Broke - Beta Band
12. Fragile Happiness - Super Furry Animals
13. Land Locked Blues - Bright Eyes
14. Begin - Lambchop
15. Presidential Suite - Super Furry Animals
16. The New Cobweb Summer - Lambchop
17. Into The Night - Super Furry Animals
18. See The Light - Sparklehorse
19. Shame - PJ Harvey
20. Single To Fairwater - Gorkys Zygotic Mynci

I would say the proportion of Beta Band is rather higher than in reality.

I won't bother tagging anyone else because I know they won't do it. But if anyone fancies it, go ahead...

Meme

Seems like everyone else is being 'tagged' with these meme things so I thought I'd tag myself. The questions were set by Cogresha, of Earth House Hold.

1. What is the coolest bird you have seen from your home?
From my current home, I think it's got to be the Peregrine that I watched picking at a pigeon in the field at the back of the house. Having said that, the Hobby that dashed past one evening was pretty smart, as are the Barn Owls we see occasionally and the Green Woodpeckers that still visit quite frequently to lick up ants from the lawn...

From previous house windows, I've seen a herd of Bewick's Swans, Common Terns carrying fish, Waxwings eating buds and a solitary Tree Sparrow, so I've done quite well.

2. If you compose lists of bird species seen, what is your favourite list and why?
When I lived and worked in Peterborough, I used to be a mad-keen local lister, but then I got a job in a different place and twitching things became much more difficult. So I threw in the towel, though not before I'd reached 200 species!

I don't bother with county or life lists so the garden list is the only one important to me at the moment. It's on 74 now, in the space of nine months.

3. What sparked your interest in birds?
Not sure, really, though my paternal grandfather kept birds (mostly canaries and assorted other finches) and I think reading his copies of Cage & Aviary Birds on a Saturday probably sparked something off.

In the third year of junior school (age 9) we did a project on birds and I was already hooked by then, though things didn't really kick off until I started going to [what were then] YOC meetings...

4. If you could only bird in one place for the rest of your life where would it be and why?
That's a really tough question. I've enjoyed birding in lots of places, mostly in the UK, so can I nominate the UK as my 'place'? If it had to be one site, I'd say the Nene Washes, but even that's quite big...

5. Do you have a jinx bird? What is it and why is it jinxed?
As I mentioned, I'm not much of a twitcher these days which kind of rules me out of having a jinxed bird (or a bogey bird, as we Brits call it). In my Peterborough-listing days, the bogey bird was definitely Pied Flycatcher. Absolutely untwitchable. It also took me literally dozens of attempts to see a Bittern, which is partly why I chose 'bogbumper' as the name for my blog (it's an old name for Bittern).

6. Who is your favourite birder? and why?
I don't really have a favourite birder, but if you asked me who I admired, I'd probably say Graham Catley - he spends hours on his local patch, he finds stuff, he takes amazing photos and he's a top bloke. If you haven't visited his blog, DO IT NOW.

7. Do you tell non-birders you are a birder? What do they say to you when they find out?
I'm lucky enough to work somewhere where there are lots of other birders and naturalists, so I don't experience that there - generally, I have my binoculars and camera with me at lunchtime. Elsewhere, I tend not to shout about it, but people are usually fairly polite - if bemused.

I'm going to tag Mike Weedon, Tom McKinney and Steve Dudley, though whether they'll respond is another matter...