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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Heaven: Lark of Translation
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Janine
The Endless Simmer
# 3337
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Posted
You've heard of the Bluebird of Happiness? How about the Mockingbird of Sarcasm? ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) There are likely many Shipmates who leave some crumbs on the windowsill for that bird.
I propose that we listen to the Lark of Interpretation, now that Northern Hemi Spring is on its way.
Even with the abnormally cold end-of-winter here Below the Bible Belt, the birds have been rioting in the trees. It sounds so happy and pretty... but I know it's not, not completely, anyway.
What it is, is advertising. Birds are letting it be known they've staked out a bit of territory, or that they're available for breeding purposes.
What do you think they're actually saying?
[ 29. December 2014, 22:36: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I'm a Fundagelical Evangimentalist. What are you?
Take Me Home * My Heart * An hour with Rich Mullins *
Posts: 13788 | From: Below the Bible Belt | Registered: Sep 2002
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
"Mine!Mine!Mine!Mine!Mine!Mine...."
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
We are an innerish-city suburb, but long-established so there is a substantial area of contiguous gardens which have been a pretty constant habitat for the last 90 years. I noticed some paired jackdaws inspecting the kindling I'd piled up for nestable twigs. The most vocal wildlife tends to be the vixens yowling 'Come and Get It!' of a night.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
Just because a bird's singing is territorial, doesn't mean it has to be singing of the "You're going home in a Chelsea ambulance"* variety. They could just be having a loudness competitionm singing the same song quote:
Immortal, invisible God only wise,
In Light inaccessible, hid from our eyes. ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
*or, as one spectacularly brilliant April Fool on Radio 4 once had it: Vous retournerez chez vous dans un ambulance de Chelsea ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Dal Segno
al Fine
# 14673
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Posted
We had eighteen magpies in a tree down the road making an awful racket* yesterday. I have never seen that many magpies together before and I had thought they were aggressively territorial. My friends at the RSPB tell me that I'm wrong: "Non-breeding birds will gather together in flocks", they say.
I suspect they were discussing how to divvy up the local neighbourhood, and which of them should fly further afield to terrorise the smaller birds.
-DS
(*) they just cannot thread the strings through the little holes, poor dears.
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Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
Posts: 1200 | From: Pacific's triple star | Registered: Mar 2009
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
That reminds me - We had one spectacularly confrontational summer a few years back, when our beloved dog, going blind, evidently thought that the magpies were the latest offspring of his deadly enemy the black and white tomcat from next door. The magpies, on the other hand, thought the dinner we put out in a red bowl (quite clearly marked 'DOG') was for them.
So maybe you can teach them to talk, but, evidently, not to read.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Was it Messiaen who made the discovery that certain bird songs (particularly the blackbird I think) had eerily close similarities to human laughter?
I quite like that idea - the thought that they are so happy to see another day that they burst into laughter.
If you listen to this all the way through to the end, it contains a rather clever example. Helps that it's all about birds and makes me think of summer. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Jonathan Strange
Shipmate
# 11001
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
"Mine!Mine!Mine!Mine!Mine!Mine...."
Yes! I think there's an Eddie Izzard sketch where he has the birds shouting "F*ck off! F*ck off! My tree!" and "Hey you, blackbird! Get the f*ck off my branch!" or words to that effect.
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"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bears his teeth, winter meets its death,
When he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again"
Posts: 1327 | From: Wessex | Registered: Feb 2006
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
Aagh! The egg thief!
My chest is big and red! Come and have sex with me!
(Both quoted by memory from Terry Pratchett and I think it was Monstrous Regiment.)
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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PrettyFly
Ship's sunbather
# 13157
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan Strange:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
"Mine!Mine!Mine!Mine!Mine!Mine...."
Yes! I think there's an Eddie Izzard sketch where he has the birds shouting "F*ck off! F*ck off! My tree!" and "Hey you, blackbird! Get the f*ck off my branch!" or words to that effect.
Eddie Izzard was the first thing I thought of too except in the bit I remember he was referring to the song "A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square", suggesting that said nightingale was actually singing "F*** off out of Berkley Square! It's my square. I'm a nightingale".
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Screw today. I'm going for ice cream.
Posts: 1797 | From: Where the sun keeps shining and where the weather suits my clothes | Registered: Nov 2007
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Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
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Posted
There's a Larson cartoon called "How to work out what your dog is really saying" which has a scene with a lot of dogs barking at different things. Translation: "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!"
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
There's a rather large tree with a high trunk (branches are all around the level of the attic on a 2-story building) along my walk home from a nearby train station, that I refer to as the "party tree." Every time I pass under it in summer, I hear a cacophony of bird chirping. I've entertained the thought - especially since I've never seen any birds, but the branches are rather dense - that the people whose house the tree is right next to have put in some kind of motion-activated thing that makes bird noises precisely to keep birds away. My neighborhood is very near a lake with a bird sanctuary, mostly shorebirds, though, but the whole area is usually quite covered in lovely white splatterings and I can see why someone might want to keep that away from their house!
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
They're competing for "American Bird Idol"!
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Janine
The Endless Simmer
# 3337
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Posted
<<... to the tune of the Ken-L-Ration commercials...>>
COCK
My worm's bigger than your worm!
My nest? Better than yours!
My wings flutter and hens are dazzled!
My hen's smarter than yours!
HEN
My eye dazzles all the cocks!
No breast warmer than mine!
My eggs shine and my chicks are lovely!
And stay away from my cock!
[ 12. March 2010, 10:05: Message edited by: Janine ]
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I'm a Fundagelical Evangimentalist. What are you?
Take Me Home * My Heart * An hour with Rich Mullins *
Posts: 13788 | From: Below the Bible Belt | Registered: Sep 2002
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Many years ago when I was at college a pair of ducks took up residence in the grounds. They swiftly became very popular (and very tame).
One day we found the female duck alone on the quad looking glum and miserable without any sign of her mate. As we were speculating what had happened to him he suddenly flew in, and if you think birds can't talk the tone in their voices was quite unmistakable:
Her: Where the HELL have you been??
Him: Hello sweetie, I'm back!
Her: You left me alone here by myself with nothing but a bunch of students for company for half the afternoon and you just breeze back in and expect me to be PLEASED? Have you been seeing some other bird?
Him: No, of course not. Anyway, I'm back now. Look over there, one of the students has got a lovely bit of bread.
Her: I DON'T CARE and I'm never speaking to you again. Ever. (Turns her back on him and settles down pointedly on the grass.)
Him: Don't be like that. (Eyeing up the bread.) Looks quite tasty.
Her (slightly less angrily): That's you all over, all you ever think about is food.
Him: I thought you weren't speaking to me?
Her: I'm not.
Luckily, "never" is a relatively short while in a duck's world, and it had all blown over by the evening.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
Our most amazing migratory birds, the Bar-tailed Godwits, have headed off to Alaska for the northern summer. Autumn is beginning her first licks and flicks. So here the birds are muttering "nights are getting colder, bro", while the cicadas are singing a sad song that goes something "shag me before I die" ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
But we won't be as cold as you were - well most of you. Thank God at least for that!
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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
Posts: 18917 | From: "Central" is all they call it | Registered: Sep 2004
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
Our most amazing migratory birds, the Bar-tailed Godwits, have headed off to Alaska for the northern summer. Autumn is beginning her first licks and flicks. So here the birds are muttering "nights are getting colder, bro", while the cicadas are singing a sad song that goes something "shag me before I die"
But we won't be as cold as you were - well most of you. Thank God at least for that!
Here, the Bar-fly Fuckwits have the corner on the cicada market.
Oh - this is an ornithologists' page, right? ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
Posts: 6477 | From: Alice's Restaurant (UK Franchise) | Registered: Sep 2005
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
Another duck story - witnessed on a Devon river more than 20 years ago.
To set the scene: Duck is trapped by Sir Roger de Drake at a point where the river's edge curves slightly onto a shallow beach where humans are standing, blocking a land-based escape. Sir Roger de Drake is swimming back and forth in a semi-circle around her, twirling his metaphorical mustache.
de Drake : Ha ha! my proud beauty! I have you in my clutches at last!
Duck: No, oh no! I will never consent! Oh hey-ulp! hey-ulp!
de Drake: It's not your consent I'm interested in! You cannot escape me now!
Duck: No,oh no! O husband! Husband -where are you?
Duck-husband (approaching at speed from up river): Unhand my wife, de Drake, you scoundrel! Unhand her I say or I'll make you regret ...
de Drake; er. .. yes.. well, Goodness me, is that the time? I must away - but I'll be back, ha ha, (beats hasty retreat)
Duck: Oh my dearest!
Duck-husband: Darling! Are you...? did he...?
Duck: No, no, my dear - I am still your own entirely (They swim away together).
I've since read that 'rape', though generally rare in the animal kingdom, is not unknown amongst ducks.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Janine
The Endless Simmer
# 3337
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Posted
I've heard mockingbirds and blue jays screaming "That cat! The cat's coming! I'll peck his head, you hide!" as they divebomb poor kitty.
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I'm a Fundagelical Evangimentalist. What are you?
Take Me Home * My Heart * An hour with Rich Mullins *
Posts: 13788 | From: Below the Bible Belt | Registered: Sep 2002
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Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
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Posted
My house seems to be located on land owned by a Bluejay. When ever I come outside he clearly says. " Go away, Go away. Go away now. What is the matter with you Go away, this is my yard, all mine, not yours, don't you dare touch a thing, you are not thinking of pulling that weed, or raking those leaves are you? GO AWAY NOW."
Posts: 2641 | From: Third planet from the sun. USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Our robin's not back yet, but we're expecting him any day now. You know, the one who hops behind us in the garden commanding,
"Pull a worm. Pull a worm. Pull a worm, now.
Get your lazy butt in gear and pull a worm for me."
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
Heard today quote:
I'm singing in the rain
And you're getting wet
On that stupid old bike
How daft can you get?
You guys rush around
Like the stuff that you do
Is really important
But I'm laughing at you.
I'll sit on this bough
And pipe my refrain
Cos I'm singin', just singin'
In the rain
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Athrawes
Ship's parrot
# 9594
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Posted
My parrots all sing a version of, "The sun is up, it's a lovely day, where's my BREAKFAST??' every morning around dawn. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Explaining why is going to need a moment, since along the way we must take in the Ancient Greeks, the study of birds, witchcraft, 19thC Vaudeville and the history of baseball. Michael Quinion.
Posts: 2966 | From: somewhere with a book shop | Registered: Jun 2005
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