27 April 2008

The fifth sentence tag

For the last month or so I am being slowly devoured from inside by a Six Word Memoir tag that descended on me from A. Decker. Eventually I'll have to come up with something, but it's a devilishly difficult one - beats even a good haiku, so it will take time. Hopefully it doesn't become an obituary instead of a memoir...

Meanwhile, I was hit by a simpler one by Roland of But, I Am a Liberal. It goes like this:

  1. Pick up the nearest book.
  2. Open to page 123.
  3. Find the fifth sentence.
  4. Post the next three sentences.
  5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.
So here you go:
Both are gregarious and agile fliers, breeding at high elevation and feeding largely in mountain pastures.
You can guess that this is not a sentence about bloggers. Not even about pilots of some unnamed air force. It comes from Birds of Israel and The Middle East by David M. Cottridge and Richard Porter. The quoted sentence is related to Alpine Chough:

And the next three sentences:
Their calls are characteristic: a loud, hollow, far-carrying chow. In Israel the Alpine Chough is a regular winter visitor to the north, but the Chough is extremely rare*. Look for this dark grey and black crow in coastal areas of Arabia, especially around ports.
That third sentence, as you have probably guessed, talks about another bird. But what could I do?

* And regarding the rarity of the Chough, mentioned above, that statement seems to be wrong:

Taken on April 3, 2008 in our garden, notice that red bill. So someone should eat a crow....

Now to tagging (he he): Irina, Matt, A.Decker (it will learn him!), Beaman, Michael.. And refrain from searching for me with blunt instruments, please.

Update: on that Chough situation: the one depicted in the shot above could be a Blackbird (Turdus Merula) after all, so let's hold the horses with that crow dinner. I may want to take it over...

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