Rock Pipit with kinda 'Littoralis' credentials, Rough Point, 17th April 2018 (M.O'Clery).
Here, a pinkish Rock Pipit at Rough Point today (one of three, or perhaps four in the area) or, depending on the angle of light, the quality of your camera or your ability to manipulate saturation levels in PhotoShop, a buffish Rock Pipit. In any case, a bird that would mostly fit into the category of a 'Littoralis' or 'Scandinavian' Rock Pipit. Worthy of publication in the Irish Rare Bird Report for 2018 in the official end-of-year rarity list in Irish Birds. But is it really one? Or really, what is a 'Scandinavian Rock Pipit' after all? The difference in DNA between them and our own 'ordinary' Rock Pipits are minimal. So small you could fit a sliver of Holy Communion between the two.
I'm beginning to think they are a made-up sub-species, invented by Russian hackers, the doctored photos disseminated on social media to susceptible or suggestible birders all over the internet. Cambridge Analytica have been posting Facebook ads promoting Littoralis as a full species so, if you have any sense, you should be very alarmed.
Maybe it's time to lay to rest the myth of Littoralis once and for all.
Sorta, kinda pinky-ish Rock Pipit at Rough Point today, perhaps a Littoralis Rock Pipit, or maybe an evil construct of the hacker-manipulated social media onslaught on the truth, Rough Point, 17th April 2018 (M.O'Clery).
Are you a believer?
Let's have a vote.
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