magistrate: The arc of the Earth in dark space. (Default)
magistrate ([personal profile] magistrate) wrote in [personal profile] rionaleonhart 2024-01-27 12:05 am (UTC)

[I just love that they named the species 'unexpected European hummingbird'.]

This is beautiful. I love it when any branch of science – which, being science, can often seem very staid and regimented and serious from the outside – has a moment where one can see through the cracks and realize that there are a bunch of bewildered humans at the heart of it.


[I learnt from my dad that the birdwatching community actually has an established phrase, 'little brown job', meaning 'it's a small brown bird, I don't know what it is, there are so many small brown birds and they're so hard to tell apart'.]

This is also beautiful! I feel much less bad about my little-brown-bird species blindness if birdwatchers also have trouble. And "little brown job" is a charming phrase.

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