The science of communication

I view myself as a fairly intelligent person. More of an all-rounder perhaps, with no particular specialism or anything I’m fabulously zippy at, but given the time and inclination I’m generally able to understand most things. There are some concepts of course that I simply can’t get to grips with, mainly those to do with physics and the universe, for instance I really struggle with infinity, but by and large if something is presented clearly and unambiguously there is a good chance I will ‘get it’.

I think I am more artistic than scientific, and certainly if I look back on my education I gave up science and maths as soon as I possibly could and instead embarked down the languages and history route. I studied poetry and the Napoleonic wars, which is why I now work in a bank. I remember two things from my science lessons. The first is when we burnt a peanut to discover how hot it could make some water. Not very I think was the answer, which is why instead we rely on coal, gas and nuclear power. The second was to do with how much pressure an egg could withstand which culminated in pulling a passing small child into the physics classroom and making her stand on it. It broke. Give me a nice watercolour every time. What I am trying to say is that to grasp science and technology I generally need help, not dumbing down necessarily, but a clear and logical progression and presentation of facts will generally get me over the line.


Now we all know that a huge amount of scientific research goes on, and that a great deal of it will filter its way into our lives in some way. I don’t have the brain capacity to get involved in the vast majority of it, nor does anyone, so instead I dabble in what interests me. Birds for example, because I like birds as anyone who regularly reads this blog will know. I actually know more about birds that I probably let on. Not topography and feathers obviously, but certainly more than “Oh a Wheatear, how lovely!” and “A Gull, ugh”. So now and again I do attempt to improve and learn about new birdy things. This might be reading a species account in the BWP, it might be wading my way through a Redpoll ID article in a magazine, or it might be reading a birding blog.


I am not for a moment suggesting that you will learn anything about birds by reading my blog. But there are some rare blogs out there where you can, and I’ve just found another one. This is of course as a result of my search for new worthy blogs, but also fits rather neatly into the kerfuffle I’ve recently been involved in regarding a BTO tweet about cats killing birds. Or rather, about some cats killing a small number of things, a few of which were birds but most of which were American lizards. If you are so inclined you can read about it here and here. Where I ended up was that the science and the method of obtaining the data was very interesting indeed, but the use of that data by a UK-based bird organisation accompanied by a photo of a cat and a pigeon felt somewhat misleading. Far more than that though came the realisation that scientists might as well be on a different planet from the rest of us; oh the irony.


Thankfully Graham Appleton is firmly on planet Earth, and it was a pleasure to discover his blog, Wader Tales. It is now linked to over there on the right. I’ve not yet managed to wade through all of it (see what I did there?) but the most recent post on Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits is in my opinion one of the best ways I’ve ever seen of distilling and communicating scientific research into a form that is easily digestible by dummies like me. This is not scientists talking to other scientists, all of whom intrinsically understand each other and speak the same language. This is a scientist making a great effort to ensure that the message contained in lengthy and rigourous studies is available in a format that anyone can understand. Me, the man on the street. At the bottom of every blog entry it says this: “WaderTales blogs are written by Graham Appleton, to celebrate waders and wader research. Many of the articles are based on previously published papers, with the aim of making wader science available to a broader audience.” Bravo.




Nothing misleading about this. It is an Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit photgrpahed in Iceland.

And that, in a nutshell, is the point that I wanted to make. This is good communication. OK, so it’s not an emotive subject, and neither could waders ever be something that the man on the street might feel was being rammed down his throat.  Nonetheless there are still a lot of pitfalls, and in my opinion Graham has avoided all of them. You could argue it’s dumbing down, and that scientists can’t win as they are either accused of being patronising or aloof. Well maybe, but on balance I prefer a bit of gentle patronising. I don’t actually think this new blog I’ve found is patronising at all, I think it has struck an excellent balance between informing and introducing scientific fact, whereas I thought that the BTO reply to the cat thing had elements of high and mighty about it. But here’s the funny thing – guess where Graham Appleton used to work? I am in no way dragging him in to this (or 23% of him…) and I hope he doesn’t mind me saying, but it was the BTO! And his role? Director of Communications. Go figure.

Junk Mail

As many people do, we have a sign on our front door that specifies no circulars, or no junk mail. I can't remember what is says actually as I never read it. It seems nobody else does either, as we continue to get mountains of rubbish posted through the letter box on a daily basis. From there it makes a conveniently short hop to the recycling box located just adjacent to the front door. No great inconvenience, but very wasteful. The Christmas season is of course worse, all sorts of colourful flyers designed with one goal in mind - to take money out of my pocket and put it in somebody else's. No thank you. 

Luckily I am more or less immune to advertising, a skill gained from a lifetime of ignoring television and most other forms of media. But I do use computers a lot, both for work and also for typing out forlorn blog posts in the post-blogging age. This means I use email, and as I suggested in my last post, doing anything online inevitably means that in addition to having to create passwords you also have to dole out your email address so that they have someway of getting in contact with you when you, er, forget your password. And once they have your email account good luck with getting them to give it up.

Here are some statistics compiled from the 13th of December - yesterday. I received 44 emails, from 29 different senders. Broadly they reflect a cross-section of my interests - for instance 8 concerned birding, 4 concerned gardening and plants, 4 were about travel, and 2 were about wine. Fair enough, however of those 18 emails I only wanted to read 7, and of those, only 5 would I classify as useful. A full 13 (nearly 75%!) I had no interest in whatsoever, and in theory this is what I want to be getting.

What about what I don't want to be getting? Ah. Here is where the parallels with actual junk mail are most closely drawn. 20 of the 44 emails, so roughly half, were from online retailers, and all wanted me to part with my hard-earned cash. Things were on sale they said, cheap they said, the lowest price to be found they said. As I've said before, 30% off is still 70% on. A further 4 on top of that also wanted my money, including two that were tantamount to begging. Of the retailers, well I suppose that I must have bought something from each of them at some point in the past, but they continue to send me email after email. Some of them send me something every single day, and many of them are at least once a week. Most of them I cannot ever recall having used nor when. Take for example a company called Newfrog. What would I have bought from them? Do they sell frogs? And anyway what is wrong with used frogs exactly?  Another is from L'Occitane, a company specialising in soap - this I do actually know as I do use soap now and again. But I have no recollection of ever having bought any from them, which means it must be a very long time ago yet checking my "Deleted" folder I found 18 emails from them since the beginning of October. Why don't they give up, surely the message is clear? I am all good for soap. If organisations had to pay to send an email things would surely be different. 

And "deleted" is what happens to all of them. But not yesterday. Yesterday I did something about it as I'm fed up of going through my inbox once a week and block-zapping them. At the bottom of each one of the emails, hidden away miles down, sometimes in small fonts and in colours very difficult to read, is a small line. It reads "unsubscribe". It is probably a legal requirement, the equivalent of ex-directory. If you click on it it frequently takes you the retailer's website to tell you they've done it, which no doubt is merely one last gasp attempt to get you to crack. I went through 18 such emails on my phone whilst multitasking on the toilet, and did the same on each one. Every single one promised to take me off their mailing lists immediately. One even sent me an email to tell me this.....

So that covers about 33 of the 44 emails (some were about things that interested me but still fundamentally just wanted me to buy something - a flight to somewhere for instance). That leaves 11 that fit into neither category, and 10 of these were from various Social Media platforms.Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. The fact I've logged into Facebook twice since my children started school is seemingly not relevant. I do use Twitter of course, and I may find some use for LinkedIn over the coming months, but nonetheless every single email was junked - the digital equivalent of moving from the doormat to the recycling bin. Every single one was basically exorting me to do more Social Media, there was almost an air of desparation. Read this! Follow this person! Here are some suggestions for things you might like! Here's another suggestion, stop sending me crap.

But what about the final email? #44? Well this is the most telling statistic of them all. #44 is from an actual person and they have written an actual email. It isn't a "fwd" or a circular, it's an honest to God missive from one human being to another. Clearly they have no idea what the internet is for.

Scrolling scrolling scrolling

I am struggling with ageing at the moment. Mostly physically of course, as bits of me snap, break, or go twang. But there is also the mental side of things. Forgetting why I walked upstairs has been happening for years now. Forgetting what I did last week at work. Being unable to remember nice long words and phrases of the type that I typically like to avail myself of (use). But most of all what I forget is passwords.

Everything requires a password or a PIN. To even speak to my bank on the telephone I need a number that I can never remember, and it's a different number to the one I use to get money. You want to order something online? Fine, create an account and choose a password. What about if you want to give a charity some money? Password please. Book a flight? Obscure account number and....password. Sign a petition? Yep password. So annoying. For instance I now have an account at the East Riding of Yorkshire Council that I will never ever use again, and for which there was a lengthy registration process (I was registering an objection about the Spurn Visitor Centre that nobody wants). I'll probably start to get emails from them now. At least on that one I’m unlikely ever to need to log on again, but for every account that is a one-off there are ten that I might need to use again. This typically means that any time I want to do anything that I have to try out all my regular passwords, and if I’m unlucky or just being thick, eventually I have to click on the reset password button and go through it all over again. These days I sometimes choose that option at the outset, as (so far) I can still remember my birthday, my first something or other, and where I live. One day I suppose I won’t remember those either. Life will be cheaper at least. 

Online is supposed to be efficient, quicker. That’s not my experience at all. Partially it's people designing websites who need a big kick up the backside. But mostly it's my age. Too high basically. 

And ironically enough, the internet is at hand to constantly remind of it. Mainly during the process of setting up online accounts, but also sometimes during the password reset process. I’m talking of course about the horrible drop down boxes you get when you need to select the year of your birth. What used to be a quick little retraction of the finger on the mouse wheel to select the appropriate year, or a drag down taking a few centimetres of desk..... sometimes I have to lift my mouse up and start again on a larger piece of real estate. And it may me just me, but it seems to get worse every year for some reason. I am now regularly having to scroll and scroll and scroll before I get to it. I can only imagine what it must be like for my parents, or indeed anyone significantly older than me.

What I don’t understand is why they don’t start it at a sensible year? How many babies and toddlers routinely use the internet? And given there’s no difference between scrolling/dragging up and down, surely the clever thing to do would be to have the start year be, say, 30 years ago. Parents registering a child for something or other would have to go up. OAPs resetting passwords would need to go down. Me, I’d be pre-selected, give or take a decade…..

I have to go down a lot further than this!!

Internet birding

I’ve just seen another Yellow-browed Warbler on the patch, my third. Or rather, I’ve heard my second, as I didn’t see it at all in the gloom yesterday morning. Nick had whooped his way through Wednesday afternoon having found it on the shores of the Alex in the Willow Carr, a much-wanted grip back from earlier in the autumn when he and Bob had missed the bird that James and I simultaneously found over in the SSSI, and that a number of folk managed to successfully twitch – including my two daughters. Fellow retiree Bob twitched it too, but at some point between then and the evening doubt began to creep in.

I blame the internet. Nick managed a few photos and popped them up on the other blog (you can see them here if you are so inclined) and before you know it there’s a message asking if Hume’s has been considered. For those of you that don’t know, Hume’s Leaf Warbler is a very similar looking bird but considerably rarer. I’ve only seen two or three in nearly a decade of twitchery. Identical structure but basically duller and a bit paler, and crucially the call is totally different which makes for pretty straightforward ID in the field. Somehow I missed the comment that raised the possibility of Hume’s, but on this I didn’t doubt Nick for a minute so it was a little puzzling to see various messages that evening asking if people thought from the photos that it could be the rarer relative.

Now I know two things about Nick that the internet does not. One, he has heard and seen a stack-load of Yellow-browed Warblers, most recently on Shetland this October. And two, that the exposure compensation wheel on the back of his camera doesn’t work. Well I know three things actually – the third is that even if that wheel did work it’s highly unlikely to ever get a look in! Now I hadn’t seen the bird in the flesh, but this led me to believe that the internet was wrong, and that Hume’s was being suggested on the basis of underexposed photographs that made the bird look duller and darker than it likely was in real life. But of course the internet is also a fast-moving machine, and so already there was news circulating that there was a possible Hume’s on Wanstead Flats blah blah blah. This is the trouble with internets – it’s out of control, inexorable. But what if a bunch of people turned up tomorrow to find nothing if the sort? I remember a funny one a few years ago where a weekday Lesser Whitethroat in Devon somehow morphed into a Orphean Warbler online that evening, causing people to skip work and drive overnight only to find a Lesser Whitethroat. You can imagine how that went down, but here’s the thing – Lesser Whitethroat is what the finder had said it was all along and was presumably as mystified as everyone else when the green-clad mass descended. I’m not saying that scenario would have played out here, but I felt that for the greater good I had better tootle down there first thing and see the bird for myself. Especially if it was a Hume’s!

It wasn’t of course, and Nick (and Bob) had been spot on. I met him somewhat randomly near Long Wood in the pre-dawn and together we crossed the playing fields towards the Alex. I heard the bird long before we even got to the shoreline, calling its head off just like the other one in October. 100% classic and normal Yellow-browed Warbler, and just as superb as it always is. We played Hume’s to ourselves just to be totally certain, but of course it’s completely different, which we knew. I put the news out to quell the rumour mill and went to work. Later than morning there was a tweet from a well-known UK birder and list-keeper. It read:

“YELLOW-BROWED WARBLER at Wanstead Flats’ Alexandra Pond Willows, and not Hume’s Leaf according to @Wansteadbirder".

You could read that short message a number of ways of course, but you have to laugh really. It was never thought to be a Hume’s and never reported as one by anybody who had seen or heard it, and in this instance a photograph was positively unhelpful. That’s not to say that photos aren’t useful, indeed all sorts of birds are now getting ‘found’ by web-based birders pointing out previously overlooked rarities labelled as something commoner or posted on ID help threads, but seeing and/or hearing a bird in the field has little substitute. More telling perhaps is the “according to Wansteadbirder” part. I’m still faintly surprised that this didn’t cause a mass twitch for a nailed-on Hume’s Warbler!

In search of worthiness

I have just undertaken a sad cull of blogs that I used to enjoy. Anyone who has ever written one knows how hard they can be to maintain – I was bemoaning that very fact a few weeks ago – and in these cases I guess that either real life or apathy took over and their authors simply stowed or threw away their metaphorical pens. It’s a shame, but I completely get it. So anything which had been silent for more than three months has been taken away – a dead link, the UK400 club equivalent of a green record. An ex-blogger.

A moment of silence for the departed please.

Right, that said, and despite blogging’s time in the sun declining, there remains a huge amount of wonderful content out there. Some of it I have already, but I am sure that there is a lot that I am missing out on. So I am asking all of you – both of you – to help repopulate the “how I fritter away the day” section of this webpage over there on the right (if you are reading on an actual computer). I’m also going to rename the section as I have precisely no time to fritter away, and indeed it could be that several days elapse before I even get around to reading any new entries. So, if anyone reading this has a suggestion for new things that I might like to read, or indeed that people reading this might like to read in preference then please do tell me what it is called via a comment, and if you are clever enough, leave an html link. I have my eye on a couple already, but I am obviously very concerned about the quality of what I might lead you to and would not wish any substandard experiences on visitors through a poorly-considered endorsement, ahem, so I am waiting to see if what I enjoyed from the outset continues to titillate.

Birds do not have to feature, some of my favourite blogs are not about birds at all. Instead they cover such diverse topics as goats, cycling, capybaras and fishing, nary a mention of a feather. Just like this one really, I like a bit of variety. Some topics are more likely to feature than others of course. In my current mood anything that involves too much do-gooding, too much protest or anger, and especially anything to do with either religion or politics are probably going to be non starters. Whilst I very much enjoyed reading about plans for a referendum on breeding Hen Harriers that lay exploding eggs on “Make Grouse Moors Great Again via the medium of Prayer”, it’s not something I could in all good conscience foist on other people.

Texas - Day 1

Sorry about the chronology - this is a continuation of the Texas trip that started here.

Day 0

Today was all about travelling so there is not a lot to say. For the purposes of a trip report it is worth noting that Austin has very few international flights, so in that respect it is a very easy airport to arrive into, and the usual CPB nightmare that you have to endure at larger gateways like New York or Miami wasn’t present at all. It was all very efficient and we were out and in our hire car within a very short space of time. In theory Corpus Christi was a little over three hours away, but once we had factored in a new wardrobe for Henry, some boots (yee-hah!) for me, and some food for both of us what should have been an arrival at 8pm was in fact more like 11pm. The birdy highlight was actually in the mall carpark near San Antonio, with a pre-dusk gathering of Scissor-tailed Flycatchers – a much hoped-for bird.

Laughing Gull. Actually not bad for a gull.

Day 1
Despite the late night we were awake before first light – there is no escaping at least some element of jet lag no matter how comfortable your travel. We were on the shore of North Padre Island, just a few miles outside of Corpus Christi, and the sky looked clear. Arriving late and in the dark we hadn’t really realised we were right next to the ocean, so it was nice to see the water for the first time. 

The first birds were not waders or gulls however, but Great-tailed Grackles, a species we were to see loads of over the course of the trip. Our first stop was Port Aransas at the top end of Mustang Island, but the light was so beautiful that we ended up stopping very frequently along the long, straight 361 that took us there. Loads of waders, egrets, pelicans and our first Laughing Gulls – we had a bit of fun taking photos as many of the birds that hang around the fishermen’s car parks were fairly tame. Eventually we arrived at the Leona Turnbull Birding Centre, and took the short boardwalk out to a viewing tower. This was excellent, with fantastic views of loads of species, including a bonus Least Bittern seen very well in the reeds, and a Green Heron right next to the tower. Grackles were a constant presence, and all sorts of egrets were seen flying over the reedbeds including Roseate Spoonbill. A Flamingo was likely an escape.

Great-tailed Grackle

Least Bittern

More distantly, out towards Corpus Christi Bay, there were literally hundreds of egrets of almost any species you cared to mention feeding in the shallows and on the mudflats. A scope was essential here for getting decent views, but equally you could practically stroke a number of species. The only downside was that being Saturday morning it was quite busy, so no real photo opportunities of the kind I really like, and the footfall meant that my scope got bounced up and down quite a lot. Instead we moved on just a short distance down the road to the Joan and Scott Holt Paradise Pond. This was a lot quieter and we had the place to ourselves for almost half an hour. Although a tiny reserve, there were stacks of birds, including our first Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and Least Grebes, both species new to me. Two Cooper’s Hawks and an American Kestrel were staking the place out, but the only small bird that we saw was an Orange-crowned Warbler, a species we would become very familiar with over the next few days. I get the feeling this reserve would be fabulous in the spring.

Least Grebe

Black-bellied Whistling Duck

By now Henry’s stomach was beginning to ask what the food options were. This is one of the challenges of birding with a twelve year old – constant and almost insatiable hunger. Happily just a short distance away was an old-fashioned family-run diner with an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. I didn’t go for it, but let’s just say that Henry got extremely good value for money….  After breakfast we briefly explored Port Aransas Nature Reserve for closer views of the waders and various herons, but knowing we had a lot of travelling to do we decided to press on. We made a stop in Corpus Christi to visit a Skateboard shop, but after that it was all about the long journey south on I77. Our first stop here was at the Sarita Rest Area just south of Riviera. This was really good, with our first Green Jays and Black-crested Titmouse showing very little fear. From this point on we started seeing Scissor-tailed Flycatchers regularly, mostly perched on the fences that separated the road from the vast ranches on either side.

Black-tufted Titmouse

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Further south a diversion to try and get to Laguna Atacosa on the coast was a complete failure, with a bridge out, and then once an alternative crossing point was found almost every road heading east was closed. By the time we had completed our fourth diversion and still needing to make a fifth we gave up and headed south to Port Isabel. We found a great area by the side of the Port Isabel – Brownsville highway that looked out across Boca Chica SP – basically a picnic and fishing spot, but with views out onto extensive mudflats. We added lots of waders here, as well as Yellow-crowned Night Heron and a White-tailed Kite. Again a scope was very useful, and in lovely light we had supreme views. Unfortunately the good birding here as well as yet more closed roads in Brownsville meant that our final stop of the day, Sabal Palm Sanctuary, was closing as we arrived, so I will have to save that for another trip. With our lodgings an hour away up the Rio Grande Valley at McAllen, we set off yet again via a nice steak dinner. Despite the amount of time on the road, the day list was 82 - not a bad start.

Compassion fatigue

Here's a nice non-controversial topic for people to get their teeth into - compassion fatigue. We live in a world with arguably not enough compassion. At least not where it really matters, which is at the government level which dictates policy. Good causes are routinely ignored and marginalised, greed and ego regularly triumph over common sense and decency. And in many cases, humanity. With governments unwilling to help in a meaningful way, all sorts of good causes turn to the general public instead. You and me. And they don't so much turn to you as assault you. Relentlessly. From all sides and using all channels. Physically and online. When is compassion too much compassion?

I work in Canary Wharf. Not exactly a bastion of charitable causes, but I make no apologies for that, it is just a job. I typically arrive on the Jubilee line, and emerge from the bowels of the earth into the cavernous hall. And here, every single morning, is where it begins. A wall of volunteers with buckets, beseeching commuters for donations. Dressed up, bright, cheerful, friendly and smiling. The causes are universally worthy, there is not a single one where I have ever thought that it was a bit rich, so to speak. There has been aid for Syria, collections for children's hospices, for homeless shelters, a fairly practical one recently asking for winter clothing for rough-sleepers (I gave an old coat for that), cancer, alzheimers, you name it and it has probably been there. But here's the rub - it is every single day. And with every single day comes the compassion fatigue. A day here and there and I would likely drop coins in (it does not help that cash is on the way out). But daily and I have become hardened and embittered, immune if you like. And so I feel desperately sorry for those volunteers or charity workers who are there - it is surely their big pay-day so to speak. Canary Wharf at rush hour, the mother lode. But what they don't see is that there was a similar group there doing the same thing yesterday. And the day before that, another. I wonder if when they convene at the end of the day they are disappointed, cursing me and the stingy financial community, or if in fact they do quite well versus other locations? I have no idea.

I actually tend to give money to charity online. Not in response to appeals, simply standing orders or direct debits, fire and forget. It's just easier that way, there is no pressure, no thought necessary. But the online world is under seige as well. I barely use any forms of social media. Twitter is my one real concession, and I follow well under a hundred accounts. Almost all of these are nature related, mostly birds. And of course with that comes, via tweet and retweet, streams of bad news and an almost endless calls to arms. To sign petitions, to do this and to do that, so show support via a click, to express concern. Some I click, some I sign, in fact nearly all I probably sign, as I do actually care about the issues at stake enough to do so. The government ePetitions on driven Grouse shooting, the absurd new visitor centre at Spurn that very few local people actually seem to want, but I can tell you that after several years of this ad nauseam I am getting genuinely tired of it. It is almost as if my brain just switches off, filters it out. Oh look, Natural England has granted another licence to shoot Buzzards, another Hen Harrier has been found dead near a Grouse Moor. Yup, more of the same, next. It's not dissimilar to the almost indifference I sometimes feel when there is yet another terrorist atrocity somewhere in the world, or another air disaster. These things happen so frequently and then are burned into your retinas for endless hours by that scourge of modern society known as "Breaking News" that you end up desensitised to it, immune. The media saturation has the exact opposite effect to that presumably intended, but if you didn't turn off you would end up a basket case, unable to concentrate, an emotional wreck. 

And yet you feel bad, or at least I do. I should care more. I should get involved myself. I should give money. I should promote these causes. I should retweet this. I should sign this. I should make my voice heard. I should express my disgust. If I don't then I'm a bad person and other people will think I don't care. I do care, but compassion fatigue is an actual phenomenon and should not be confused with or be assumed to be an excuse for heartlessness. It isn't, I'm not heartless, but I am definitely sick of both bad things happening as well as people trying to do good. This patently ridiculous, how can I get annoyed by both when one is a solution to the other? 

There are two types of compassion fatigue however, and I have been talking about the minor version. The more serious compassion fatigue is actually a form of traumatic stress disorder caused by emotional exhaustion and it occurs, ironically enough, in caring professions rather than just passers by like me. People can devote themselves so fully to the care of others - people or animals or indeed a cause - that they are affected by it in adverse ways that at their extreme could cause exactly the opposite of caring behaviour. Ultimately it's the same underlying reason - over-exposure to bad things, but seeing too many petitions or watching ten hours of BBC rolling news isn't going to turn me to substance abuse, it's just going to continue to raise my levels of cynicism to new heights.

So what can be done to counter it? I have no ideas I am afraid, not one, which is rather tragic.