counting coots

That was the question.

In this instance dear reader, the convoluted answer is this.  If you know how to count lots of birds, you can skip this today and read something more interesting.  I have handily supplied some suggestions on the right hand side of the screen.  Isn't that nice of me?

Ok, counting them 'onetwothreefourfivesixseven' would be exhausting.  It's pretty easy to get a handle on what ten birds looks like so you extrapolate from there. Thankfully the Starlings trickle out in the morning rather than coming out en masse. Counting them in the evening is much more difficult and the quantity is internally referred to as ‘loads’.

If you look at the picture in yesterdays post, I use the tall building with the straight edge as the counting point. The birds generally move out (and in) to the roost under the bridge from the far side and the ones that I am counting are moving from left to right. As they pass the straight edge I count them in 10’s 20’s etc and write down the quantities at convenient breaks in the flow.   There is a fair chance that there are birds moving away from the bridge that I cannot see from my vantage point, but that dear reader, is another null hypothesis for another day.

And that's about it. 

Science. Done.  Again