Bird-watching With Bronte

[poliphilo]

So what was that? I'm pretty sure it wasn't any kind of sparrow. Too slim,  bill the wrong shape.  I flick through the pages of my bird book and find the closest match. Speckledy, pale brown with an even paler stripe across the eye. If I'm right that was a twite. Wow! But there are so many species of approximately the same size and approximately the same colouring. Charlotte Bronte was talking the other day about a hedge full of "small brown birds". That sort of amused me.  So, you weren't sure either, were you, Charlotte?

Call yourself a countrywoman!

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I believe that even today, birders refer to SBJs (small brown jobs).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Lovely! I take comfort from that. :)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Charlotte's upland country may not have been strong on hedgerows, I suppose. But did she not, like Jane Eyre, spend her childhood perusing Bewick's Book of British Birds?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think she must have done. But then Bewick's pictures weren't coloured.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Now now, Tony, birdwatchers actually have a category known as LBB (little brown birds).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You see, I didn't know that. I'm a very amateur and unaligned bird-watcher.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Well, as any naval type will tell you, there are only two sorts of birds:

Shite'awks and small brown jobs!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That simple, eh? :)

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Ah, the joys of identifying the Little Brown Bird! Wait until the chiffchaffs and the willow-warblers come back for the summer!!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Until recently I just called any little brown bird "a sparrow". Now I'm learning better.