Well ..... all the newspapers are full of pages and pages of "puzzles" to keep the population entertained at home. Bread and Circuses. So. jumping on the bandwagon , which I hope will be driving around for essential reasons only, here's a "puzzle" sort of thing that I put on here almost two years ago ( post 42) .... and I wrote it, it was my idea, I did it, yes, ME. Well, this is no ordinary story .... no. As you can see, there is a FULMAR in the title, and a WREN lurks in reverse almost immediately afterwards. There's plenty more to be found, and not just UK birds either. I've taken one or two liberties on the way, as you will no doubt see, but they were all, interestingly. in the interests of interestingness .... you should be aiming at 40+ ...... luckily some of them are really really obvious.. and unfortunately, some aren't ..... THE CASE OF THE TEARFUL MARINER Wearily Mr. Allen S. Gallinu leaned forward, his hair cascading in a golden arc towards me."Well' I may be a miser in some things, I may not get out of puff in quicker time than you, but one thing you must quite allow, Mr. Holmes. The body was stiff. Furthermore, without being too critical, a quantity of mandarin oranges was found in the stomach of the victim. Holmes replaced his nib, organising his thoughts. Our progress was nil. Nude bodies are rare in our small circle, and for Roy, alternative comedian, to be found dead in a hovel, fowl-smelling and rancid was unknown. " I resist all ideas that he died alone. Various clues point to a rosy future for this investigation. I'd reveal more facts.... but tell I, Watson, do you remember the case of the beer-barrel bra? We nipped that one in the bud, despite rumours of a ban. An aquittal was secured by a mere fluke of law !" " Nil remonstrandum" replied Watson, " a typical case of 'duam evodacni , aqua illud' if I ever heard one. A solemn silence filled the room. when to our amazement an arrow rent it in twain, thudding into the desk-top. Around the shaft was a piece of paper, black, not unlike a scroll. Erasing all fear Holmes unwrapped and read it. "Leo,Pooh, Roo ,Kanga, Childhood tales fill my anger. A shapeless hag, I step inside ... Hadrian's Wall owes ten nag's hide." "This is kindling to a fire" said Sherlock, " a fire which will burn swiftly and who's prey is our skin. Grail we will not see at the end of this quest, but one day the black cap of the judge will prevail. The killer will fall in nettles of his own making, and out efforts will dip peroxide on these black deeds. We will remain alert, S.E Kensington is our hunting-ground. Watson looked up.... " you are not a budger. I garnish these tales, but Gad, wallow in sentimentality I will not." Finally, with a bruised rib, frustrated by paucity of evidence, Holmes retired to his study. ........................................................................................... ... for all I know, many of those birds might be extinct by now ! Some of them were, as promised, dead obvious, some pretty dastardly, at least one of them needed a subtle mis-spelling ... but now, music .... Zahara ... " Chica Pop " ..shall I mention that there are loads of versions of this on't net. No. no no no .......
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Seeing as "we" aren't supposed to be driving around for "non-essential" reasons, I thought I would hark back to those happy times when it was do-able ....... Here's my gripping account of a Welsh Twitch from many years ago ... I put the first part of it on post 41, 41-white-billed-diver-twitch-and-straw-boaterists.html ... but never got round to the rest of it. So .... here's the whole thing in its total completeness and wonder ! ... ..... not to mention the terrific fartwork ..sorry, artwork .... .... there's cycling in the dark, tension, blood, Birdline ( remember that ?), a big girl in a Tower and a beautiful one in Doc Martins....... read on .... ... yes, there's a bit of an overlap there .... ..... no overlap this time ... "dindi" ,by the way = dinner / dindins. ...but harking back to reality, here I am on a windy freezing cold morning, the skies are devoid of anything with wings ,mechanical or biological, and it is Boris Lockdown Day 26. Ouch. So...... obviously, it is Music Time ... nothing to do with any of that ... In the previous post ..which was of course, #841.. probably a good idea to nip back and have a look .. .... I left you with a fairly easy task ... and I promised you I would show you the answers .... and here they are..... So now we have all 9 of the birds that somehow or other need to be traced out on the wonderfully devised " Sharrock Grid" ..... the other three being Swallow, Puffin and Snipe. And surely it MUST be those nine .. I can't imagine that any other set of nine could be generated by the same letters. The only dinky problem now is ... Sharrock's Shambolic Instructions...... it could be that I'm not understanding them correctly ..I'll let you judge ... and here they are .... "Nine species, including one featured prominently in this month's issue, are hidden in this block of letters. All nine are single words. Spell them out, in an unbroken line, by skipping from letter to letter. In each case, the next letter is to be found adjoining an adjoining square (i.e. next but one; touching a neighbouring square). all 64 letters are used; none is used twice. Beware of false trails. Be systematic. Find all nine birds. Which is out of sequence ? Which is last? Those are your answers. Can't see where to start ? Just take a shot at it. Well, you can see he's struggling to explain what you can do...and can't do. And as I pointed out, a couple of diagrams would have made it clear. For example ..... Here's a block of letters ... ABCDEF PQRSTU KLMNO Do Sharrocks' Rules mean that A-C via B is Ok? The "usual" interpretation. Presumably that includes A-Q via B ... or P. But what about A to R via B ? Or via Q ? Are diagonal skips allowed ? After all, B is "connected" to R ,if only at one tiny point. Can you go from A to P ..and claim it's OK because you've got there via B ? And can you go from A to L via P ... or via Q ? And are you allowed to go from A to M via Q ? We just don't know. Because, for the sake of a sentence or two, or a diagram like mine up there, he simply hasn't told us. Another thing is .... what does " in each case" mean ...does he mean "with every letter" or does he mean " when moving on from one species to the next ?" Then there's his " unbroken line" thing ... pretty meaningless I reckon. What other sort of line might we be drawing ? This sort of thing perhaps ... P — — R ↔ A † N __/""""""""""" N ~~~O === C ↨ K I'll show you the grid again now to make my final point .... I guessed that SNIPE was probably the starter... " take a shot at it it" ... well , that's what "snipe" means ... you know, "taking a snipe at things" ? Snipers ... they shoot things . BUT ... there's only 4 S's on the grid .... the S down at the bottom left corner and the one in the middle of the right side don't have the vital "N" anywhere near them, the one in the middle has an N slap bang next to it, not " adjoining an adjoining square" .. and the one on the second row has TWO of them right next to it ...... which as I've shown you above, whether you can access them is rather debatable. As is how you can finish your Snipe off. And that's just one of the birds you've got to trace out. It all brings to mind the famous adage ... one picture is worth a thousand words. So ... stuff the grid ... let's just admire us lot who have worked out what the nine birds were ! Huzzah !! And now ... music .. lots of DCFC songs ...... Getting back to actual birds, yesterday I "got" my first Swallow of the year, but yet again couldn't find any Wheatears or Sand Martins ... and this morning the first House Martin flew over the garden, and the first wasp of the year got ticked.
Come to think of it , no Meadow Pipits either. Bah !! A good while ago I showed you one of Sharrock's dastardly "grids" from an ancient British Birds . Here it is again in all its tattered crapulous glory ... ..and here's the "instructions" .... which , to me at least, are rather short of being helpful. Even The Significant Otter thought they were rubbish. Crumbs. Anyone with ¼ of a brain could explain it better ... an example or two would have been a good idea. So ... I sort of gave up on it. But in these lockdown times, when the seconds seem like hours, I had another "go" at it .... but not the way he intended it to be done. Stuff the blasted grid ! No. I was going to "do" it my way. So ... I started by making a "candidate list" of all the " one-word" birds on the UK list.... about 70 or so. Then I filtered out all the ones that had letters in them that aren't in the grid .. that narrowed things down a bit. Then I got out my Big Box Of Hundreds Of Scrabble Tiles and selected the 8x8 =64 ones on the grid. And then I used them to make the three birds that I HAD just about managed to spell out according to the mega-vague Sharrock commands. And they were Swallow Snipe Puffin. ( 18 letters in all) That left 64-18 = 46 letters waiting to be reassembled into 6 more birds. Here they are then ...... off you go ! I sorted them out into 6 one-word birds in about 10 mins. Have a go for yourselves .... ready ... steady ..GO More on that next time ..... but now .... a "relevant" song ..... This one is a much more recent "Trogs" adventure .... The Trogs and the Ovenbird The Trogs are usually an amiable bunch, if not perhaps top birders, but what does that matter. But, they are loyal, if nothing else, and they provide entertainment to all they meet. But over the last few weeks, their equilibrium has been disturbed by an interloper, a rather bumptious, over-confident type who had latched onto them. But the thing is, he spends all his time criticising them, insulting them, belittling their birding skills, and generally being a prize turd. And he hangs around with them for hours at a time, dogging their every move, and generally being a bloody nuisance. The only positive is that he's doing it to everybody else as well. The tearooms are awash with people complaining about his awful presence, his insulting attitude. In fact, many have stopped going there so often, keeping away just to avoid his attentions. They are all desperate for him to bog off to one of those top twitches he keeps boasting about. Anyway, after a few weeks of this, Ed, the one who's been to Benidorm and claims to have ticked Red-rumped Swallow, hatched a plan. A cunning plan. An ad hominem plan, to boot ! Here we go then .... So there they are, the Trogs, minus Ed for some reason, and sure enough, Stodgy ( that's their nickname for him) turns up and get going with his usual slagging-off routine,when Ed burst into the hide (most unlike him) brandishing his smartphone ,and shows it to the assembled Trogs ... their response is .. "blimey" ..not that any of them has a clue what he's showing them ... for it is an Ovenbird ! Stodgy takes a look .... bloody bastard Ovenbird ... he knows his stuff, fair do's ... and before you know it, they're all racing up the path to the remote corner of the reserve where it was showing... Stodgy continually telling them to bloody well speed up.... but after a bit the Trogs can run no longer, so Ed quickly tells him how to get there ... he's then got to climb a tree ... he can't miss it, an ancient, dead tree which just pokes above the canopy and from there, from the top, the very top branch,he will be able to see it. It's the only viewpoint really ... and off he goes, does Stodgy, at great speed. But guess what ? He never comes back. We'll never know whether he saw that Ovenbird. He's never been seen again, not that anyone wants to. Only 5 people know what happened to him. And that's those five Trogs. Mind you, Ed didn't tell the others for years ... just in case they couldn't keep it to themselves. But once the whole thing had died down, and Stodgy had been forgotten by everybody, he told them what had happened. Here we go ... Ed, besides being a keen birder, was also a local historian. And especially, the interaction between "natural history" as it used to be called, and the human population. And one day, in the County Archives, he came across a curious tale about a large, dead tree which ,way back in the 1700's, had been rumoured to have strange powers. The gist of it was, anybody the villagers didn't like would be encouraged, tricked if you like, to climb up it. Money would be offered, fake " competitions" would be invented, whatever it took. And up they would go .... never to return. As soon as they set foot on the top branch, they vanished. Totally. Gone. And for about a year, Ed had known this. All the locals had been told about it, and if anyone came to stay in the area, they would be warned. Most poo-poo'd the idea,but they didn't risk it ! Some of the locals he talked to were able to tell him of more recent incidents .... or things their parents or even grandparents had told them about that tree.It had brought the tally up to around 20 or so. But Stodgy .... he was a fly-in. He would just come roaring up in his fancy fast car ...and bog off to whatever distant place he lived in. He was a prime candidate to be got rid of ! An ideal candidate for a spot of tree-climbing ...of course, there was no Ovenbird.Ed had just snapped a picture from a magazine. But here's an odd thing ... exactly 1 year later, an Ovenbird did turn up on the reserve... no tree-climbing required ! And it was Ed that found it. Well well. ... and all manner of things shall be well ! And appropriately, from Stodgy's point of view, here's Manu ... "Goodbye" I thought I should show my ongoing Lockdown TV Bird List to the dribbling hordes ... so, warts and all, here it is ... Starling ( News) Robin Gardener's world Blue Tit Ditto Collared Dove Ditto Jackdaw Ditto Chicken (1) Can't read my scribble next to it Song Thrush A Murder is Announced Black-headed Gull That Railway programme with that bloke with the suits Herring Gull Ditto Blackcap Father Brown Song Thrush #2 Ditto (Skylark) Ditto ... but only "mentioned" Song Thrush Ditto Willow Warbler Ditto ( + anachronistic talk of " twitching" ) ( American) Robin ! In an (American) Park on the news ! Woo !! Feral Pigeon The Likely Lads Robin #2 Jonathon Creek. Tawny Owl Ditto Collared Dove #2 Ditto Canada Geese King's College Cambridge lawn ( Elephant Bird D. Attenborough examining a huge egg (extinct)) Gannets Countryfile Gt. Tit Ditto "Silky" Chicken Ditto Blue tit #2 Ditto Blackcap Ditto Herring Gull #2 Bridlington Chaffinch Inspector Maigret Carrion Crow Program about how less traffic is benefiting birds etc. Jay Ditto Collared Dove #3 Ditto Mallards Ditto Nuthatch Ditto Tawny Owl (2) Film ... "Scape Goat." So .. that's where I'm up to so far ... it's all very exciting isn't it !? Perhaps you'll all want to have a bit of a lie down after all that. Hey ...we could run a sort of " football pools" thing based on that list. And I ought to try to get "ditto" in the music too .... here we go .... Were there any birds in that ? Here's another fine song that has a lot of running in it, and just 1 bird ... watch closely ... .....you could start your " Birds spotted on youtube song videos" list.
You've all noticed those charts in the sport's section of newspapers that tell you " How to Watch Sport all Day" ... they show you how, by changing channels repeatedly you can, er, Watch Sport all Day ...more or less ... the gaps can be filled in with eating, drinking, dozing off etc. Fun fun fun. Well ... as you all know, in these L ...o...n.....g Lockdown Days I've been " doing" a TV list of birds ....it's quite exciting actually.Yesterday I charted all the "possible" programmes with a good chance of having birds in them ... I hardly watched any of them, because other issues intervened, but I did get quite a few of those precious TV Ticks. And I've slotted in some Radio ones as well. So ... here's my " Tick Birds All Day" Handy Timetable for Tuesday April 14th 2020 ! 0558 .... Tweet of the Day .... Tree Pipit ( yes, I know that's not TV, but needs must) 0600 .... S4C ( Welsh Radio) Cyw ... that's"chicken" .... farming prog maybe ? 0700 ... Sky 1 Wild Vets....they might get some birds in. 0820 ... Alibi .... Father Brown .... hopefully a different one to the 14:10 offering. He'll be cycling around ticking Chiffchaffs and the like. 0900 BBC2 Lambing Live as it Happens .... must be some raptors around. 0920 More4 A Place in the Sun ( winter) ... no details, but there's birds to be got. 0950 Sky 1 Bad Nature ... no info on that one .... but it could be good. 1045 BBC1 Homes Under The Hammer ... more looking at luxurious gardens. 10:30- 12:40 ! ITV3 A Touch of Frost ... he'll probably be searching for bodies in a forests, good for peckers etc, digging up people's gardens, good for tits, dredging lakes/rivers for the aforementioned dead bodies, good for ducks, swans, kingfishers, dippers etc .. [ Brief Respite for Dinner] 13:05 C4 Posh Pawnbrokers ...bound to be some stuffed owls in glass cases. and ancient/useless binoculars. 13:00 BBC1 Regional News .... 45 minutes of possible Birds in the Background ! 14:10 ... BBC1 Father Brown ... very rural ... I've had some good ticks with it in the past. 14:15 BBC2 ...Nature's Weirdest Events .... Chris Packham ! 1450 PBS America.. The Wild Canadian Year ...... hoho ! 15:00 BBC1 Escape to the Country ... house-hunting ... plenty of big gardens. 15:00 C4 ... A Place in the Sun .... house-hunting in West sussex and Languedoc. Must be some excellent gardens in that lot . With birds in them. 15:15 BBC2 The Long Ships ... Vikings at sea ... pelagic paradise ! 16:00 C4 Escape to the Chateau .... should get some French birds there. 19:00 BBC2 Race Across the World ... the island of Ilha Grande in Brazil !! Dig out your South American bird books and CDs. 19:30 BBC4 Weird Nature ... could be something/anything. 20:00 ITV Tales from the Coast ,,,Off the Dramatic Shores of Pembrokeshire.. seabirds ..... oho ! 21:00 ITV Prue Leith: Journey with my Daughter ... to Cambodia !! Ticks ! Maybe ? 2200 Sky 1 An Idiot Abroad ... Karl visits Mount Fuji ! Exotics ... OK, Exoticks !! Right then ... you're sorted. As you've probably noticed, there's been a bit of " Scraping the Barrel" over the midday period.... but I suppose barrels need to be scraped from time to time. Hey .. once you've got to the end of that last program you can take the night off ! Bah ! The music WAS going to be Something/Anything but I forgot all about that and did this .... it's very good though, so that's Hunky Dory .
I was there ! I took the photograph ... but "the" bird did not show up. And it was Horribly Hot. Probably due to the proximity of a Nuclear Power Station. Yes .... there's a tricky question .. What ARE all those twitchers doing under Boris's Big Bad Blockdown ? There's quite a few of them you know. And it is quite addictive. And none of them want to drop down the hierarchy. Or up the lowerarchy. So therefore ... .... I don't think they would be sticking to those guidelines. No. Because, in the main, they're blokes. And, generally speaking, blokes will do anything..... .... well, anything they think they can get away with. .... and what about those "rare bird alert" hotlines ? .... are they still providing tempting rarity information ? ..... I bet they are. ......... Still. So, I recommend that the twitching "fraternity" should do the right thing. So, if you spot an albatross flying past your window You shouldn't tell a living soul, just leave it, let it go. And if a stray Dickcissel decides to land on your Arbutus Don't take a snap, don't tell your mates, and please, do NOT tell US. And if a friend reveals to you there's Cliff-Lift-Swift in Newark Make it very clear to him that you do not give a F**** (!) (If the Cliff-lift Swift is, to you, something of a mystery This nifty link will tell you all about its recent history....) 51-the-cliff-lift-swift-and-other-mythical-birds.html ( If you go there, I suggest you listen to the music It fills your heart, and your head, it really is terrific ! ) Yes, this is a made-up story about a fictional band of birders ..... the first of several scattered around this blog. It was on post #177 . I have unearthed it in the hope it might entertain and educate .... OK, just entertain then ... Here we go then .... Whenever I'm around Grumbling Stumps STQC Reserve I eventually come across "The Trogs" ... a loose group of five birdwatchers who seem to spend most of their waking lives either sitting in hides for an eternity, or staggering around to the next one. You could, at a pinch, compare them to that lot from the TV .... the Last of the Summer Wine lot. We all call them the Trogs, though they don't know that. As in every group, one of them is an amiable but useless birder... you couldn't really rely on any of his identifications . However, he's really nice bloke,and well liked too ... mainly because he isn't any sort of rival and he makes the other four feel like experts. Win-win. We'll call him Jim. And here's the others ... Dan ..... the best birder in the group, and he's been to Scilly .. twice ! Ed ....... the joker of the group. He's been to Benidorm and seen a Red-Rumped Swallow.. maybe. Stan ... the quiet one. But he carries a bird book with him. Not done in top circles. Mac .... the Scottish one. A giant of a man too. I hope he's a gentle giant. So ...here's one of the many stories about them. The trogs had been on the reserve for an hour or so. They were still in the closest hide... nicknamed the Weetabix hide because it looked like one. And,like Weetabix, bits kept falling off it. And it's very permeable to water. Not a lot had been spotted, but Jim had ,sure enough, got them all wrong. As usual. The others never got at him though .. they had learned the important skill of putting things right tactfully and positively ..a rare skill for most birders. Anyway, they were used to it, and him. They got up eventually and moved on, and a slight drizzle started up. Jim buttoned up his jacket, turned up the collar, took his hat out and put in on, and the others followed suit. . Hang on a minute, he said, isn't that a Cetti's Warbler singing in the distance ? The other hardly bothered to turn their heads, but then they heard it too. Hang on ...Jim had got something right ! Cripes !! They didn't say anything though. Every dog has his day. They got to the Gannet hide next. It's called that because that's the one where people tend to eat their dinners. There was quite a bit of ordinary stuff around, but then Jim piped up again. "That's a Green-winged Teal", he said, with an odd air of confidence ! They all swivelled around, expecting to focus on a Teal, or even a Garganey perhaps ..but, bloody hell, he was right. Double Cripes ! And throughout the the drizzly afternoon Jim kept on getting things right. He beat them to everything. After a while they got a bit tetchy..... they didn't like it. On the way back, a bit of an argument broke out.... they seemed to get the idea that he was cheating in some way. Poor old Jim was a bit bewildered himself actually, and he didn't like their attitude. But maybe it was just a blip ... he's had a lucky day. He slept badly that night .... he had dreams about more arguments, about losing his friends. He woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. Next day, another rainy one, real hat, coat and scarf weather, he decided on the way to the reserve that he would just keep his ideas to himself ...at least for a bit. But as they went round the usual circuit, he found himself having to hold back ...he spotted several noteworthy birds, a Cattle Egret among the Littles, an extremely out-of-range Chough way in the distance and a "heard only" Marsh Warbler deep in the reeds. Eventually he couldn't keep it all to himself, and blurted it all out ..... but rather than backtracking to pick them up, they turned on him and told him to his face that he was getting to be a nuisance and they'd rather he kept away from them in future. He could keep his new-found and highly suspect " expertise" to himself. Dan, the "2x Scilly one", was especially nasty, and as for Mac, he looked ready to give poor old Jim a good kicking. The truth is, they thought he was playing some creepy trick on them. He turned on his heels, almost in tears, and walked straight home. He didn't even stop for a better look when a Hoopoe landed in the field he was passing. His world was collapsing around him. And yet he should be happy... all sorts of rare stuff was round every corner. What the hell was going on ? He thought that they would like him better when he no longer made daft mistakes. He had always wanted to have their respect.... and now, it was working against him. He spent another sleepless night. What was happening to him ? He had always wished he was a better birder. Who doesn't ? But it had turned his friends against him, and his life had become meaningless. And all in a couple of days. He got up and had breakfast. He thought about what had happened, and why. What was different about those last two days ? Think, he thought. What is it ? Then he thought about that hat. This had all started when he put the hat on. The hat he bought at the weekend from a charity shop for a quid. He rushed into the hallway and tugged the hat from his jacket pocket. Then he went out into the garden ..still in his pajamas. He put the hat on, and looked over the fence. There was that bloody Hoopoe. Then a flock of Spanish Sparrows landed next to it. God almighty ! It was the sodding hat. He took it off ... looked up .... nothing at all rare or tricky in sight. He held the hat closer and had a good look at it. It was pretty old and battered looked at close up,but there was something very faint sewn a long time ago into the inside of the brim .... Jim peered at it intently.... and it said .... ...... ROGER TORY PETERSON ... just about visible... but definitely there. It was his hat ! A magic hat !! He was made !!! He could be the best birder in the world at last. He did a little dance around the lawn. Then he stopped. He had tasted perfection, and it hadn't done him any good. Jim threw the Magic Hat on the ground. He fetched some paraffin from the garage, and a lighter. Then he burned that hat to ashes. Then he got dressed, and walked to the reserve. All the way there, he saw nothing noteworthy, and he wouldn't know if he had. He was himself again. There was Ed at the pools .... anything about Ed ? There's a Garganey just showing ..have a look through the scope. Jim peered through the lens ... "well, it's a duck all right. I'll take your word for it Ed .... looks like a Teal to me." Jim looked rather pleased. " We've got you back then Jim ?" " Yes ... I think so. One day I'll tell you all about it." Then Mac, Ed and Stan turned up, and off they all went to the Sardine Hide. Because it was always packed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After all that, this .... I "got" two Orange Tips whilst out on my " Exercise" walk ..... and I've been building up my " Lockdown Lists" .... the " Birds on the radio" one and its companion, the " Birds on the TV" one .... they're coming on quite nicely, with some quite exotic stuff appearing already.
That " Pyramid of all My Bird Books" is still getting bigger, and remarkably I still keep turning up more every day. And there's lot's more "Lockdown Things To Do" on post 820 .... here's the link ... 820-things-you-can-do-indoors-birdwise-that-is.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Once again, in the interests of cheering us all up, I have dragged something up from the unknown depths of this blog (post 128 actually) ..... at the time it was an important breakthrough in the field of " Fictional Birds and their Orwellian Undertones " Issues concerning bird identification are, I suspect, rare in works of fiction. So, when they do occur, we must examine them critically. Obviously. Well, I say "obviously", but it is seldom dealt with in academic circles. One of the most gripping ( no pun intended) issues crops up in A.A. Milne's most famous book, Winnie-the-Pooh. It is an integral feature of the plot-line in " Kanga and Baby Roo" which is really a story about entrenched xenophobic attitudes in a closed and overprivileged claustrophobic society crammed with lazy, pleasure-seeking inhabitants . Kanga is a newcomer to "The Wood" ... a thinly-disguised dictatorship in the steely grip of Rabbit and Owl. So ...they hatch a plan to get rid of Kanga via the kidnapping of her (presumably bastard) offspring, namely "Roo". This seems a bit much,but it's true .... here's exactly what gets said ... " We'll tell you where Baby Roo is, if you promise to go away from the Forest and never come back." I bet you never saw this story in its true light ! But now you know. Their dastardly plan is to distract Kanga, then steal Roo, replacing him with Piglet in Kanga's pouch. But how will they distract Kanga's attention from her beloved Roo? Here's how .... they try poetry first, but it doesn't do the trick ... so they have to try Plan B..... here we go " Talking of Poetry," said Pooh quickly, " have you noticed that tree* right over there ?" "Where" " said Kanga. " Now, Roo .... " "Right over there", said Pooh, pointing behind Kanga's back. " No" said Kanga." Now jump in , Roo dear, and we'll go home." " You ought to look at that tree right over there" said Rabbit. And he picked up Roo in his paws. " I can see a bird in it from here," said Pooh. "Or is it a fish ?" " You ought to see that bird from here," said Rabbit. " Unless it's a fish." " It isn't a fish, it's a bird." said Piglet. " So it is." said Rabbit. " Is it a Starling or a blackbird?" said Pooh. "That's the whole question," said Rabbit. " Is it a blackbird or a Starling?" And then at last Kanga did turn her head to look. And the moment that her head was turned, Rabbit said in a loud voice " In you go, Roo!" and in jumped Piglet into Kanga's pocket, and off scampered Rabbit, with Roo in his paws, as fast as he could. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's not often that a crucial ID issue has such tumultuous consequences. Literary critics have also commented on the fact that "blackbird" has no capital b but the Starling is capitalised. Are they such beginners that they can't tell whether it's a Crow or a Rook or a Blackbird ? Is there a hidden meaning. And on top of that, why choose those two. Surely Kanga would have been far more likely to turn round, and looked for longer, if they'd "seen" a Jay, or an Eagle, or a Hoopoe. We'll never know what Milne's intentions were I suppose. Maybe, in this mysteriously unworldy "100-acre-wood" all birds are equally common ... or, equally rare. There's much more ground to be broken in the neglected depths of Fictional Birds ..... and I'm determined to get to the bottom of it. Which is probably the right place to start in such murky waters. BUT ...there are literary critics ( Wavely Newt to name but one) who are determined to trivialise the importance of fictional bird studies. BUT ... I should be allowed to think. If you have come across any "crucial ID issues" in your no doubt extensive reading of fictional works, let me know..... and I'll coax all the subtle undercurrents out of it for you . You can send it in the comments thingy,or to my email ...... [email protected] Meantime, music ..... Sweet Bird of Mystery If you don't know about Wavely Newt .... here's your thingy ... 77-more-bird-poetry-from-wavely-newt.html ... and here's another famous and inscrutable fictional bird .... 226-another-undefined-fictional-bird-laverdure.html * Milne can't be bothered to tell us what sort of tree it was .... a huge setback for us lot who are trying to promote a serious, critical approach to the fictional depiction of our living environment. |
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October 2022
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