MM Links July 2012 Week 4
This is King John 11 (aka Rockfirdill) here with my 4th (and final) attempt at being the MM setter.
I know now how careful one must be with these preambles! All must be triple checked etc. etc. 'cos you are such a highly intelligent bunch that any slight aberration from accuracy will be pounced upon! I refer to last week's effort on archery when Strix was absolutely right in pointing out that three fingers draw back a bow string, two under the arrow and one, the index finger, over the arrow. This allows for a slight holding of the arrow if needed before it is loosed.
I referred last week to my great love of birdwatching and all things to do with the animal kingdom. I must say that the great drop in some sections of the bird population is very worrying. I cannot believe that these days I am actually pleased to see a house sparrow. When my father acted as a bird recorder for Kensington Gardens in London I remember a survey then back in the fifties revealed about 6,000 sparrows. The last count a couple of years ago found 6! Does anyone remember the dawn choruses of that period - they were delightfully deafening. Just about every garden had its song thrush and blackbird,(therefore no slugs and snails), plus robins, wrens etc. etc. They all sang together and it was a serious dawn chorus. Talking about sparrows, we have three in the UK and one of those isn't a real sparrow (the hedge sparrow or dunnock is an accentor). In my second home, the USA, we had about 50 different sparrows about 10 of which I was able to record in my own Rockford garden over the years.