To take a random example, 200
would be divisible by the sum of its digits (2+0+0=2). It has a mathematical symmetry
that is pleasing to the (OCD) mind.
Harshad comes from the Sanskrit harṣa (joy) + da
(give), meaning joy-giver.
It could be said, therefore that
200 is a number that gives joy to the recreational mathematician.
<->
Birding is a not the be all and
end all for me (no really), I have many other far more important things to do
in life, nonetheless it is a source of great joy and part of that joy is in the
numbers. I like a list....or two....or more.
I have seen Bar-tailed Godwit on
my World List, Western Palearctic List, British List, English List, East
Anglian & South-Eastern Lists and London List but, up until today, not on
my Patch List, there was an OCD brain-itching gap against that particular
delicacy, all the more so in that a number of local patchers have previously connected
with BTG, some multiple times.
All that was to end however this
morning when Adam ‘harshad’ W braved the elements and found one on the Lockwood
(story below) and to his credit got the news out. His initial views, in very
poor conditions led him to the, not unreasonable, conclusion that it was Black-tailed,
a bird that I have seen on the patch, (20th July 1998, 9
summer-plumaged birds off the reservoirs and South over my house). Although I
didn’t need it and only having a 40 minute window available this morning I
thought it too good a patch year tick to miss and so shot up there. Imagine my confusion
and delight that when clapping eyes on it, albeit distantly, with only bins and
in the murk, it looked a bit Bar-taily. Adam W and Steve H had also got onto it
again but were not getting fabulous views either, however a fisherman flushed
it, and its true identity was revealed.
After a near thing with Hoopoe
last week (we don’t talk about it) I finally got to ink in my 200th
patch bird; Bar-tailed Godwit, a giver of joy indeed. Not that it has been a
quick thing mind you; I first visited the patch, for the purposes of birding,
in 1967, so 48 years, though with many and long hiatus (not hiatai apparently)
in between. I have to agree with that other great local patcher, Fat Boy Slim
(no relation) when he waxed lyrical about the patch:
We've come a long long way
together,
Through the hard times and the
good,
I have to celebrate you baby,
I have to praise you like I
shouldddddd
PW @birdingprof
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