Aside from being accomplished architects and artists, many bowerbirds are also skilled mimics. Male satin bowerbirds will imitate the calls of other local birds during their courtship displays. Even more startling, MacGregror’s bowerbirds have been heard imitating human speech, pigs grunting, and even the sound of nearby waterfalls.
There was a Fawn-Breasted Bowerbird at the Honolulu Zoo that was very good at mimicking human conversations, to the point where you could talk to him about like, Modern Art Theory or Gothic Symbolism and he’d nod along and go “ooh” and “Mm-hm” at the appropriate parts and was actually more helpful for fleshing out ideas than some of my professors at the time.
He also clipped every single eyefeather off the Green Peacock he was sharing a cage with to make the MOST MAGNIFICENT bower for the lady fawn-breasted Bowerbird in the next cage over. She was so pleased she laid him an egg, and managment decided to let the two lovers be together (once given some birdie birth control), and the Peacock was moved in with a much less ambitious Wilson’s Bird Of Paradise.
birds were invented by sticking a bunch of weapons and feathers on a ball of pure hubris and bringing it to life by the power of spite and fight alone, they are completely lacking in the ability to regret bad decisions like the ones about to be made above
I like how the second heron is just hovering in the back like GREG. GREG, NO. LETS JUST GO HOME, COME ON
[Video of venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough standing amid vegetation. On a near-horizontal branch above his head is a brown and yellow greater bird of paradise, about the size of a crow, with big floaty yellow plumage puffing out along its back.]
Bird: Pwuk. Pwuk. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: This, surely – Bird (hopping along the branch): WUKWUKWUkwukwukwukoooh. Oooh. Oooh.
[Cut. Same shot.]
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: This, surely, is one – Bird: Kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: This, surely –
[Cut. Same shot but the bird is on the other side now and venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough has his hand on the branch.]
Bird (hopping up and down on venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough’s fingers): Eh-eh. Eh-eh. Eh-urrrr. Eh-urrrr. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: Close up – Bird (hopping away from him): Tiktiktiktik. Tiktiktiktik. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – the plumes – Bird (hopping around): Huek. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – are truly – Bird: Huek. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – exquisite. Bird: Huek. Eh-eh. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: The gauzy – Bird (hopping and spinning on the spot): HukWUKWUKWukwukoooh. Oooh. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: …
[Cut. Same shot but the bird is back on the original side of the branch.]
Bird: Aark. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: Of course, by the eighteenth century – Bird: Ehhh. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – naturalists realized that birds of paradise – Bird (hops across to the other side of the branch) Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – did have – Bird (hopping back again): Krrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – legs. Even so – Bird: WUKWUKWUKWukwukwukooh.
[Cut. Same shot.] Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough (apparently trying to tickle the bird’s tummy): – by about the eighteenth century – Bird (hops away and spins round) Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – and so – Bird: AAAAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK aaak. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough (wearily): … Very well.
[Cut. Same shot.]
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – but Karl Linnaeus, the great – Bird (vibrating rapidly on the spot and then flapping its wings): PWAAAAAAAK. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – classifier of the natural world – Bird: AAAAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAUUH. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – when he came to allocate a scientific name – Bird: … Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – to this bird – Bird: … Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – called it – Bird: Wooo-ooo. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – wooo-ooo – Bird (surveys the surroundings with a dignified turn of the head) Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: ‘paradisia apoda’: the bird of paradise – Bird: Hoooo. Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – without legs. Bird: Eh-eh.
A small fat bird, like the above, is the hieroglyph used in Ancient Egyptian to mean “wicked” or evil”.
The phrase above him (the inscription should be read from the top down) is “Nb s3″ or “Lord of the son of”. Genitive is usually implied in this sort of phrase without a connecting word, meaning:
This birb has literally created the sentence and declared himself “ Lord of the Son of Evil”
God dammit, I realised I made a mistake doing this from memory- the first sign is “k” for “your”, not “nb” for “lord”. So this birb has declared himself “your evil son”, not “the lord of the son of evil”. Which is not quite as dramatic, but still very menacing. You go bird.
setepenre-set 