I was recently described as tendentious by one of my favourite commenters here, and after checking that I really did know what that meant, I agree! I certainly tend to tend towards tendentious, and I don’t intend to pretend that is likely to change. I think the name of the blog – Standing up for…
Category: ME:
My swifts
They’ve gone for this year. It’s been such a lovely summer since I got back from the USA in late June. 2013 has been a butterfly year in the garden with lots of large and small whites and a few green-veined whites too. Also peacocks, meadow browns, gatekeepers and a single female common blue. My…
What’s in a name?
I’m quite happy being called Mark. It’s nice and short, easy to say and comes from the Roman god of war – Mark was one of the three commonest male names in Ancient Rome. And seems fitting given that I was born in March too. My surname, Avery, is of uncertain origin. I had a…
Gardening leave
I don’t get out much these days – I spend much of the day sitting at a computer and writing. I’m not complaining – it’s what I want to do, but I am a bit deskbound. The other day I heard a bird call come through the window that was closed to keep the heat…
Emperor’s new clothes?
I headed off, towards the end of last week, with three chums to look at flowers and butterflies, and to drink beer and wine, and to put the world to rights. All of us could be described as senior enough to be grumpy old men, although, of course, our aim was to be happy not…
Thank yous
Flight Centre at Cambridge for sorting out my flights and car hire and especially Samantha for moving quickly just before I left to correct the mistake of my car hire being booked at a different airport from the one where I arrived and left! I was lucky, in the Wayne National Forest to meet several…
David, Gladys and other companions
I wasn’t on my own as I travelled across the USA. David came with me the whole way and Gladys was there almost throughout. The Sibley ‘Guide to birds‘ was in the passenger seat of my Hyundai Sonata right the way across the USA. Border Patrol officers glanced at it and were reassured that I…
Driving, eating, drinking and sleeping across the USA
Just a few thoughts for travellers to the USA, particularly from the UK, based on my experience. And my experience, of two long trips now, is based on driving long distances and not planning ahead too much so that you have the flexibility to go where the road takes you. Driving across the USA: it’s…
USA checklist of birds
For what it’s worth, here is my bird list for five and a half weeks in the USA – just over 300 species and over 80 lifers (in bold). On a careful run through Sibley I noticed I’d missed out a few species – western grebe (from California), black vulture (from Arizona) and roadrunner…
Top 10s
I covered 8270 miles in the USA and visited 20 states (TX, LA, AR, MO, KY, IN, OH, WV, WI, MI, PA, NY, IL, KS, CO, UT, NV, CA, AZ, NM) which means, completely incidentally, that I ‘need’ to visit only Oregon, Washington, North Dakota, Iowa (how did I ‘miss’ Iowa again?), Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama,…