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| TL: House martin; TR: Swallow; BL: Swift; BR: Sand martin |
On Springwatch this week, Martin Hughes-Games gave us a memorable lesson in how to tell a swift from a swallow and a house martin from a sand martin.
(I recall the latter being easy to differentiate by the fact that the former's song sounds uncannily like Caravan of Love while the latter sounds like Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?).
(I recall the latter being easy to differentiate by the fact that the former's song sounds uncannily like Caravan of Love while the latter sounds like Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?).
Along the way he dismissed the popular misconception about swifts having no legs.
Swifts do have legs. They're just very, very short. (Even shorter than Ernie Wise's. Or mine for that matter).
So listening to this morning's quiz on Radio 4's Broadcasting House, I snorted as guest presenter Jonny Dymond said the following:
So that's the sound of a swift - a bird that's always in flight. In fact, it doesn't even bother with having legs. Its feet are directly attached to its body.
That's one of those "in fact's" that doesn't quite live up to its billing really.
And it got worse. Much, much worse...
As I spend some time last week lazily watching Springwatch's live camera of a swift's nest, watching a pair of swifts lying down on their nest, preening each other, I spotted that swifts aren't always in flight.
Yes, they can fly around without landing for a couple of years but when they're going into the family business they most definitely do take a break from flying - hence them loafing around on a nest on Springwatch this past week (rather like me), the lazy beggars.
What's to be done about this terrifying lapse in accuracy from BBC Radio 4 then?
Discussing the matter with my local sharia court, we've agreed that the appropriate punishment for poor Jonny is 100 pecks from a woodpecker.
Update: And for the sake of candour, I've just fallen foul of Skitt's Law here myself: The original version of this post had Martin Hughes-Games down as "Martin Games-Hughes".
My local sharia court has ruled that I should play 100 games of Monopoly with people called Hughes as punishment, one after the other, over the next week.
(The jokes on them though. I love Monopoly).
What's to be done about this terrifying lapse in accuracy from BBC Radio 4 then?
Discussing the matter with my local sharia court, we've agreed that the appropriate punishment for poor Jonny is 100 pecks from a woodpecker.
Update: And for the sake of candour, I've just fallen foul of Skitt's Law here myself: The original version of this post had Martin Hughes-Games down as "Martin Games-Hughes".
My local sharia court has ruled that I should play 100 games of Monopoly with people called Hughes as punishment, one after the other, over the next week.
(The jokes on them though. I love Monopoly).
