Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article , ned
wrote:

Yes, I always smile at the confidence of birdwatchers who report
seeing 2,749 greylag geese, plus 767 Brent geese on the marsh.

Nah. They know. They just ask the little green men in flying
saucers how many there are, and the latter use their advanced
technology to count the birds.

Trouble is, the aluminium foil in their hats often scrambles the
transmissions and leads to false readings. Fortunately, technology
has found a way round this: a very large pair of nitrogen-filled
binoculars round the neck filters the shorter wavelengths, so you get
a more accurate read-out on your palm pilot. This works better if the
binoculars have a camouflage pattern to break up the infra-red
absorption.

--
Mike.