A bird in hand

It has been long known to man that a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Conventional wisdom is, of course, right. The medieval English certainly had a keen eye for the economics of risk and reward. While the equation relating the relative worth of birds in hands and bushes may not be applicable beyond the world of birds, we can build a perfect science in risk management on the certainty of this foundation: after all Rome wasn't built in a day.

But returning to birds and on further examination using the advantage of ordinal convenience, we see a startling revelation. If a bird in hand is worth two in the bush, surely, if there were three in the bush, we must go after them.