As one who is known for his sense of fair play and ability to compromise, please can I formally request of you that my patch be extended under rule 3.2, subsection 46? Specifically I would like to include an extension southwards of just a measly few hundred metres and it need only be as wide as the footpath along the top of the dunes, thus still keeping me within the 2 square km limit agreed previously in the all party discussions.
If you feel able to acquiesce to my request, can it be backdated to 8pm last night? The reason for this request is simply that it forms a more natural unit to cover and has nothing to do with this:
I would, of course, honour your approval by naming the extension as the Sepp Blatter Annex as well as asking the kind people at the Murcar Golf Course to grant you life membership.
Yours in anticipation,
Statto
Dear Statto
ReplyDeleteThankyou for your letter, although I failed to find anything of monetary value enclosed? Anyway, I digress...much as I would like to assist in this matter, its really out of my hands! Ever since the Galley Head Coal Tit floating patch boundary debacle, its been agreed that no extensions are allowed, no matter how much cash changes hands (well, up to a limit of 10 Grand at least!)
Besides, its only a feckin subspecies and a duck at that! Now, if it was a coal tit or the like - that would be a different matter entirely!
Well, there is a rule that if you could have seen it from your patch while you were outwith the boundary, then it counts. That's the truth, Mugabe told me so.
ReplyDeleteAnd another thing, BOU counts it (and White-winger) as a full species.
And another thing. Top find if I may say so. Not the easiest thing to pick out when the light is going. It frequently "hibernated" into the mud, only to re-appear in a completely different part of the flock and was tough to pick out. I spent ages trying to see it at first, but when you locked onto it, well, obvious innit.
Ha Harrrr - I don't need a bigger patch, or to use the Mugabe rule. I just needed to wait for the bird to move north yesterday and then see it well and truly from the patch in the early evening light. And no, the RIB patrolling close inshore scarring all the ducks away from Murcar earlier in the day was nothing to do with me at all.
ReplyDeleteNow then, how about another can of worms with "Best Find of 2011 entry". Bird found off patch but subsequently seen on patch where initially re-located by someone else. How do the rules cope with that then guys?
Nice try but alas no. The rules are very clear and say you have to find it on your patch to count it as a best find. As you didn't find it on your patch self evidently you cannot then count it So neh luck...
ReplyDeletebut then just enjoy the find
Aye and as for those people chasing birds around in RIBS they should no better...
But, but, but.... I did first see the flock it was in from the patch, then left the patch to look at them closer whereupon I discovered the traveller. I hereby invoke the Mugabe rule after all.
ReplyDeletethe Mugabe rule has actually been misquoted by that messer hadders, for what machiavellian reasons we are yet to discover! There is no "its ok to count stuff that you saw outside the patch when you were outside the patch that could have been seen inside the patch" or else I would have black-winged stilt on my patch list a few years ago! I saw the bird at white's marsh (about 4 miles off patch) then I fecked off on a week's fieldwork to Kerry - de langer cronin then relocates the stilt the very next day on de lake - so it would have been visible from de patch (garden in fact!), but I was in kerry, but I did see the bird! Needless to say it fecked off the day before I got back! So, can I count that on the patch list? can I f***!!!
ReplyDeleteBut you can happily have de scoter on de patch list I guess, if BOU say its a split - not sure it is over here but that's hardly relevant! but not sure about havin it as best patch find - if you'd had yer suspicions whilst on patch, and then got closer (off-patch) to confirm then that would prob be ok but otherwise, tink I'm siding with Bushveld!