Collaborative List – November 2019

Despite last month being a record month by every measure we could think of, the cumulative total for the year had barely scraped past 2,400. I approached The Management to seek their opinion. Something needed to be done. Somebody had to take one for the team.

Mike fixed me with his cold, steely, gray-eyed stare. He rose slowly from his seat, bronzed torso glistening. He raised his binoculars above his head and cried out with courage and clarity, “I am Sparticus!”

Corey gasped, “Mike, I didn’t know you waxed.”

Mike’s penetrating stare swept Fingerwards and realisation dawned on Corey that he too was a flag-bearer for 10,000 Birds.com and role model to literally dozens of birder/bloggers. Ripping his shirt, he stood with Swarofskis aloft. “I am Sparticus!”

Perhaps it was the andrenaline that threw them together and thence to the floor in an exuberant wrestling clinch. Whatever it was, Corey was found at his keyboard 2 hours later, covered in blood and snot and sporting a cut lip, having announced that he and Mike would rescue the failing list by taking personal responsibility for adding 300 species.

And that, in case you were wondering, is how the trip to Uganda came to pass and incidently, why none of us are allowed into Dunkin’ Donuts ever again.

The Management are still in Africa, suffering the buffering that comes with remoteness. Their Ugandan contribution reached 258 before contact was lost.

Ticks for November numbered 973 from 120 lists shared by 11 beats. They ranged across 10 countries (Costa Rica, USA, UK, India, Australia, China, Brazil, Mexico, Serbia and Uganda). The year list has reached 2602 and the year list has been bumped up to 3915.