No surprise in the final bird on the advent calendar. Or at least, no surprise for my British readers; robins probably appear on more Christmas cards here than Jesus. In fact, the robin is so deeply linked to Christmas that it’s slightly surprising to remember other countries don’t have the same association. Some of them [...]
Posts tagged with ‘advent calendar’
Related tags:
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 23: Partridge
23 December 2009 – 10:04 pm
I’ve been baking a ham, wrapping presents, and listening to cheesy Christmas music today, so let’s plough on with the Christmas clichés. I’ll skip the seven swans a-swimming, the six geese a-laying, four colly-birds, three french hens and two turtle doves; but here’s a partridge: It’s not in a pear tree because, apart from anything [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 22: Spotted Nightjar
22 December 2009 – 3:52 pm
I’m going out on the razz this evening and I have things to do; presents to wrap, cats to give pills to, ummm… that might be it. But anyway, here’s a quick one, a lovely picture of a Spotted Nightjar and chick which I found on Flickr: Cryptic camouflage designed to help birds hide can [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 21: Raven
21 December 2009 – 11:59 pm
My computer shows signs of being on its last legs, so here’s an avian omen of death. In Anglo-Saxon poetry, in the build-up to a battle, three animals — the eagle, the raven and the wolf — turn up in an ominous foreshadowing of the bloodshed to come. I’m pretty sure this literary trope didn’t [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 20: Hawfinch
21 December 2009 – 12:28 am
I sometimes dream about birds. Particularly, I dream about rare birds turning up suddenly in my garden. And my subconscious aims high; I dream about mixed flocks of parrots and hornbills which, in dream-logic, have been caught up in some extraordinary freak weather system and blown from all corners of the world to turn up [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 19: Magpie Shrike
20 December 2009 – 11:50 pm
Just a quickie, since I’m catching up with myself; the Magpie Shrike: » The 3 watchers, © Marc Dezemery, is used under the CC by-nc-nd licence.
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 18: Short-eared Owl
18 December 2009 – 7:39 pm
I had to have an owl for one of these entries, because let’s face it, everyone loves owls. So here is the Short-eared Owl, Asio flammeus. The Short-Eared Owl Is one of the most widely distributed species of bird in the world; it’s found on all continents apart from Australia and Antarctica. There are even [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 17: Green-tailed Sunbird
18 December 2009 – 1:04 am
Still on the dinosaur thing, because it is genuinely fascinating, I think. Yesterday I picked a bird that looked like a bit like a dinosaur to illustrate the point, but of course they’re all evolved from dinosaurs, even ones like the Long-tailed Tit, or this Green-tailed Sunbird: And it’s not a distant relationship, in evolutionary terms; [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 16: Red-legged Seriema
16 December 2009 – 11:29 pm
In the comments for the last entry, Tricia said: Just…look at its DINOSAUR EYE, Harry! The reason why some birds look, from the right angle, rather dino‑saurian is that they are dinosaurs. Many people think that the dinosaurs went extinct. This is NOT TRUE. They just grew feathers. » The headshot of the Red-legged Seriema is [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 15: Stone Curlew
15 December 2009 – 11:11 pm
This is the [Eurasian] Stone Curlew, Burhinus oedicnemus: A goggle-eyed beauty of a bird. » Alcaravão is © Joaquim Coelho and used under the CC by-nc-nd licence.
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 14: Wilson’s Storm-petrel
15 December 2009 – 12:17 am
The tubenoses — the petrels, shearwaters and albatrosses — are a wonderful group of birds saddled with a slightly unfortunate name. It’s true that they do have tubular nasal passages on top of their beaks, presumably to help them sniff out food at sea, but it’s not exactly a name full of the romance and [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 13: Long-tailed Tit
13 December 2009 – 10:06 pm
Familiarity breeds contempt, and it’s hard to get excited about even the most attractive of birds when you see them for the 20,000th time. But there are a few birds which are dirt common but which never fail to give me a little thrill of pleasure every time I see them. Like long-tailed tits: They [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 12: Chestnut-crowned Antpitta
13 December 2009 – 12:14 am
This is one of my favourite birds ever, the Chestnut-crowned Antpitta, Grallaria ruficapilla: Or in a more orthodox portrait: They have a simple three-note call, and on a birding trip to Venezuela we encountered one individual that consistently got the notes in the wrong order. Which got funnier every time it did it. » Chestnut-crowned Antpitta, [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 11: Red-necked Phalarope
12 December 2009 – 1:21 am
When I read Halldor Laxness’s Independent People, it kind of made me want to visit Iceland. On the one hand, it’s a bleakly pessimistic tale of a man struggling to drag himself out of grinding poverty, only to be crushed underfoot by changing circumstances. On the other hand: phalaropes! Phalaropes — that’s the Red-necked Phalarope [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 10: Sword-billed Hummingbird
10 December 2009 – 10:41 pm
When I started this advent calendar I intended to just post picture of a bird each day and leave it at that, but I keep thinking of things I want to add. Today, though, I really am just going to post a picture: That is a Sword-billed Hummingbird, Ensifera ensifera. Not, sadly, one of the [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 9: Sedge Warbler
10 December 2009 – 12:44 am
You wouldn’t last long as a birder if you weren’t able to find beauty in little brown birds, but they don’t always photograph well, so I was pleased to find this lovely shot of a sedge warbler on Flickr: The Sedge Warbler, Acrocephalus schoenobaenus, is an archetypal LBJ — Little Brown Job — but is [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 8: Swallow-tailed Gull
9 December 2009 – 12:59 am
This is the Swallow-tailed Gull, Creagrus furcatus. It’s endemic to the Galapagos, and as you can see, with that big red eye-ring it’s one of the world’s more striking seagull species. I use the word ‘seagull’ deliberately because, for some reason, it really winds up a lot of birdwatchers; they insist that the only acceptable [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 7: mousebirds
7 December 2009 – 10:21 pm
I just love this picture of mousebirds feeding on aloe flowers in South Africa: I’m not quite sure about the species — Speckled Mousebird, maybe? — but it doesn’t matter. Here are some more mousebirds, showing their tails better: The mousebirds are an African family of birds which are distantly related to parrots. They are [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 6: Little Egret
6 December 2009 – 11:35 am
I’ve been a bit freaked out by the tone and volume of the climate-change sceptics recently; they seem to be getting louder, shriller and more visible. Which really deserves a post of its own, but in the meantime, here’s another bird for advent: That’s a Little Egret, Egretta garzetta. The photo was taken on the [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 5: Ground Woodpecker
5 December 2009 – 3:18 pm
This is the Ground Woodpecker, Geocolaptes olivaceus, which, as the name suggests, is a large southern African woodpecker species that lives on the ground: There are quite a few woodpeckers species that spend a lot of time on the ground; the Green Woodpecker in Europe, and the various flickers in the Americas, for example. But the [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 4: Red Junglefowl
4 December 2009 – 10:10 pm
My two-year-old niece could identify this one: Except she’d be WRONG. Sort of. Because this is not just any old chicken; it’s a Red Junglefowl, Gallus gallus, the wild ancestor* of everyone’s favourite kind of meat regularly served by the bucket.† It’s an Asian species, and according to Wikipedia was probably domesticated in Vietnam 10,000 [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 3: Secretary Bird
3 December 2009 – 4:12 pm
The Secretary Bird, Sagittarius serpentarius: Because it’s a bird of prey which has evolved long legs like a crane; something I think is just fabulous beyond words. They stalk across the grasslands of Africa, hunting small prey like snakes and lizards. It looks more eccentric than terrifying, and it hasn’t lost the power of flight; but [...]
Harry’s advent calendar of birds, day 2: Japanese Bush-warbler
2 December 2009 – 10:11 pm
while I’m gone you and the nightingale are in charge my snail uguisu to / rusu wo shite ore / katatsuburi Except that the uguisu is not actually a nightingale; it’s the Japanese Bush Warbler, Cettia diphone. It has often been translated as ‘nightingale’ because it has similar poetic associations; it is famous in Japan for its song [...]