What am I on ? Follow the Maths.
(1) Like any worthwhile venture I have a target - to see, photograph and post every bird in the world before my 70th birthday.
(2) There are 10,361 bird species currently described by science.
(3) The Task began on 9 May 2011 when I created this site a little over the age of 42. What a nice idea I thought - then the internal audit department arrived.
(4) The current Bird Rate or "BR" is simply the days the Task has been running divided into the number of birds posted up - The bird rate should be at or around 1 to stand any chance of succeeding (Hint - there is no chance I will succeed).
(5) The Required Bird Rate or "RBR"is the number of days left until I am 70 divided into the number of birds I have left to see.
(6) Do not get excited - if the RBR is around 1 but the BR is way below 1 then I will never finish before I am 70. That is the definition of an impossible Task - too many birds and too little time. I am not sure I want to birding into my 140's - I am going to take up another hobby - so something has to change.
(7) Having said that If I can keep the RBR at or around 1 then logically the BR should improve toward one. The only thing that can stop me then is my inability to actually see some of the rarer and far flung birds rather than my 'pace'. If I get left with Ivory Billed Woodpecker one day before my 70th birthday I am done for - but then so is the Ivory Billed most probably and it will be at that point that I will secretly wish that it is extinct - it probably is. That's a whole other conversation. Imagine the scene - 70 year old man trudging through swamp on wild goose chase and lobbying the word's scientists to agree on an extinction event on his mobile simultaneously.
(8) As a statistical tool the BR and RBR are just a piece of fun. They remind me of the bag of 6 inch nails I bought to bang into the bottom of Xmas trees to go in their special bucket each year. I counted the nails in the bag and realised in a profound manner that I had one for every year until I was in my mid 60's - Seeing your life mapped out in nails is just too close.
(9) Is this man having a mid-life crisis - quite possibly however if it means I have to travel to Thailand and wander through a rain forest I am not too worried about it. Bring it on !
(10) What will happen with the BR and RBR ? The liklehood is that unless I take rapid and massive action the BR will potter around at a rate less than 0.5 and the RBR will begin to pull away from 1 - slowly - ever so slowly - through the afternoon of a long lifetime's play the statistics will begin to confirm what you already know but have ignored. You are losing. The taste of victory consigned to oblivion by a number crunching statistic until there it is. You are 68 - the BR has been healthy perhaps 0.8 but you have an RBR of 7 and 2 years to see a couple of thousand birds and many of those in the middle of Yemen, Somalia or the Congo. A bit like an English cricteting heroe I will have to soldier on in the statistical (as well as actual) knowledge that I am failing as the figures move.
(11) But what if ? What if I can get the BR above 1 and the RBR below 1 - that gives me extra time for some tricky birds and its all about time. The odd day where I photograph and post say 50 birds (adding the text later perhaps) could pull me back on track. Dream on Neil - you will never succeed.
(12) Sports tension then to last a lifetime - like the longest test match you have never watched. Trouble is you know you cannot win. In theory its possible - but why then hasn't someone done it even without the pictures.
(13) Don't get me wrong - I am committed but I am just not hungry enough and I am not dreaming the impossible dream. I am living the impossible Task like every birder in the world who starts a world list. I have heard of world birders seeing 7-8000 species. That must be something. It takes a vast effort (and people write books about it) trying to see just 1-2000 birds in a year and that's full time birding with guides in a group and those folks are certainly are not taking pictures of every bird along the way. I have a half decent job and lots of other distractions at the moment - I coach rugby, I potter about at home and have a big social life. I am just not quite ready to jack everything in and put on my leach socks. The day will come though. To get some measure of this earth and measure it in birds.
(14) I will see how long the BR and RBR last. The current task must be to get the BR up to 1. Thats acheivable ! I would need to perhaps have 6 months when I just worked and then poured every weekend and evening into the Task logging up 500 species quickly. Work gives me opportunities and resources - time and will are the two resources needed. Logically the RBR will fall below 1 if I did that. I started with more than a day per bird when I started this task with a target date of 67. I am drawing the line at 70 now - so that has led to...
(15) ...one more number. The likely result. Predicted score - that will be the total birds so far + Days Remaining x BR. If we can get the BR to 1 then the site will lie and suggest that this is possible - it is not !! The maths will predict based on a couple of good years that aged 70 I will have set a world record by being the first man to log a picture of every bird in the world (on their own) on a website. Thats got to be worth something.
So thats the BR and RBR - economic tools that confirm the Task is impossible as things stand. Glass half full though - if the BR goes up and keeps going up I am going to see thousands and thousands of birds - and so are you if you come back to this site every year or two for a check up - you can check the figures check that I am still on track to fail but in the safe knowledge that I am enjoying every second in the field and will have probably just seen an Asian elephant in the wild, a tiger a blue whale, brown bear or even just a brown hare to throw into the mix. All worthwhile.
Neil - Homo Sapiens
Al Barsha, Dubai
