Hi all,
I recently posted details of a sighting of a Sooty Oystercatcher in my area.
In a response from Paul Walbridge,
"Fw: Sooty Oystercatcher at Pelican Park SE QLD (Wed, 17 Mar 2004 23:22:40
+1000)"
http://menura.cse.unsw.edu.au:64800/2004/03/msg00320.html
he asked the question: "And the significance is?"
Perhaps the following quote from Henry Thoreau's book "Walden" may explain:
"I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing
in a village garden,
and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should
have been by any epaulet
I could have worn."
Thoreau was an American poet and essayist who lived from 1817 to 1862.
Apparently his book "Civil Disobedience" was an inspiration to such people as
Gandhi.
All of this probably has no significance whatsoever to the presence of a Sooty
Oystercatcher 10
minutes walk from my residence.
My posting reporting the presence of the said oystercatcher was merely an
attempt to assist those
less fortunate birders who are yet to see a bird which some 'enlightened'
people seem to consider to
be 'rare'.
The hope was that those 'less fortunate birders' would have their lives at
least partially fulfilled
and they would find that there was some purpose to our 'being here' after all.
Having found that 'purpose' perhaps they might then explain it to me.
In what may, perhaps, display my naivety, I assumed that BirdingAus was an
appropriate forum on
which to report my sighting.
My action was based on what I perceived as a number of precedents (some of
which had absolutely no
significance to me but which I, again, assumed were appreciated by others). If
my action was, in
fact, inappropriate and BirdingAus is purely a forum for more esoteric topics
then I apologise and
will
refrain from doing so again.
Or, have I missed the point of the question?
Cheers (sic)
Bob Inglis
Woody Point
Queensland
Australia
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