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**Birds, birding and madness**
LIFE
MUCH madness is divinest sense
To a
discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’T is the
majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, - you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
Emily Dickinson, 1924 (Poet and a... 'bird'
(ahem))
________
Fishing is complete and utter madness.
Spike Milligan (a 'non'-birder - the above quote is reputed to also apply
to birding - i.e. 'birding is complete and utter madness')
________
JAVA
Proud and perverse, he sat at
the counter and waited to be served. But the counterman was also proud and
perverse, so he served only those with endearing dispositions. It was not until
the shift changed that the man was served his cup of Java and scrambled eggs on
rye, sunny side up.
- Ivor Cutler (genius scottish poet that has a bird
table in his garden and is a member of the Royal Society for the Protection of
Birds...probably - well 1 in 60 in the UK are members!)
________
“My hope is that there will come a day when the birding tribe is not
divided up into little sub-clans, least of all by ourselves. Nor should we
hunker down in narrow little shells, peering disdainfully at the neighbours for
small differences of approach.”
"Birders". Mark Cocker - birder and Guardian
newspaper journalist.
Publ. Jonathan Cape, Random
House.
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