Odd birds

[jgb7573]

I was recently parked up in my campervan beside a reservoir somewhere up above Haworth or thereabouts. I'd been there overnight and when I got up to find a bush at about 8.30, there was a young lady in green with binoculars round her neck and a clipboard in hand wandering along the track beside the reservoir towards me. I decided to forgo the bush for the time being and fell into conversation. She was up there involved in a survey for the RSPB. Having identified a bird I'd just heard (a curlew) and talked knowledgeably about the oystercatchers in a ploughed field on her last visit I asked whether she'd seen anything of particular interest that morning. She hadn't, but she was hoping to see a twite, that area being something of a stronghold for them. This intrigued me somewhat as I wasn't entirely sure whether she considered me a twite for camping beside a reservoir somewhere above Haworth, or whether she was a twite for wandering aound dressed all in green. I looked it up later and the twite is a little brown jobby closely related to the linnet. So I considered myself less of a twite than I had previously thought and went happily on my way to Harle Syke. Isn't education a wonderful thing?