I was having a chat about stuff with Pete Doherty this morning, and he tells me that because of the common genetic ancestry of most of the races of the Milky Way galaxy, many species are able to interbreed with or without the help of genetic technology. In fact dogs and doves are quite similar, […]

T Bell, MD, Kalogynomia, or the laws of female beauty (1821):
Professor Blumenbach of Göttingen, whose profound science and perfect impartiality no one can doubt, does not hesitate to say, that the English are the most beautiful people on the globe. Nor is this wonderful when we consider that ENGLAND, perhaps exclusively, presents the combination […]

Dead playing pheasant (gamekeeper’s grave on the N estate in what used to be called Central Southern England before Labour, inspired by Norman Tebbit’s dad’s bicycle, decided to demolish the entire north and rebuild it in Southeast England, which unfortunately turned out to be a tad small for the exercise):

Keepers’ memorials like the above are […]

Call me whatever you want, but that’s one flight we won’t be on tomorrow.

The long, narrow bar connects the folksy-chaotic gypsy street on one side of the block with the folksy-chaotic payo shopping street on the other. People walk through it from one side to the other without greeting the hick Pakistani tenant or any of his clients. Not that he cares in the least: he is off […]

I am building a bird table so I can catch tasty little birds with a net and fry them in bechamel for breakfast. Its leg consists sturdy spring, which will cause pigeons, goats and other creatures undesirable for this purpose to fall off before they get to the bait.

Emanuel del Mar, Nuevo guía para la conversacion, en español é inglés (1839, via GBS):
Una golondrina no hace verano. One swallow does not make spring.
Both spring and summer are used in both languages, but you’d kind of expect northward migration to take swallows to Spain in spring and then England in summer. Perhaps we don’t […]

Laura Gibbs is posting, translating and commenting Latin fables. Today’s is rather good: “The Birds were in a terrible Fright once, for fear of Gun-shot from the Beetles. And what was the Bus’ness, but the little Balls of Ordure, that the Beetles had rak’d together, the Birds took for Bullets.” Read the rest.

I’d have thought this story establishes for once and for all that chickens discovered America, but I guess there’s still a whole load of work to do.

I’m still not very good at birds, so, until I can do a vulture like this, here on the edge of some scree is a species unique to Iberia: it looks like a sparrow, has a call like a chaffinch, and the English name is spaffinch. Behind me to the right, under a small group […]

Full points to Mr Antonio Navarro, who wanted nothing more than a peaceful beer in a brothel. (Via Absurd Diari) (I am saving my commas for a more appreciative audience.)

Snapped by SG on a lovely clear day last week on a variation of this Barcelona city walk. The birds belong to three tired-looking gents who one would have said were hippophiles pertaining to the kingdom of Dionysus smackheads, and our party did not feel inclined to enquire as to the whys and wherefores.
Birds are […]

I want to do something quite simple: change from Vodafone to Movistar or Amena-Orange so I get reception in the Pyrenees, while keeping the same phone (a stream-personalised Nokia 3310), number and pre-pay accountability. When I say this shop assistants laugh uneasily and reach under the counter for the bat, and online things are no […]

Here, via the seriously underfeeded but still gloriously defiant Iberianature. I’d like to see more photos of them eating stuff, but then I’m not a rat.

So this will be left at that.

Re this post, this remarkable image of a falcon scattering starlings, which won Manuel Presti the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. (Via esprit azul@après moi, le deluge)

As Spain disintegrates, Pedro de Miguel suggests that even sparrows are moving into the separate identity business:
In Bilbao it’s not just the Bilbainos who are from Bilbao. If you’re not from round here then you really should look out for Bilbao sparrows: fat, glossy and prone to cockiness, they barely make way as you pass […]

The other day I serendipited upon a review in Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië (1853) of Abraham Benjamin Cohen Stuart’s translation of what sounds like an absolutely brilliant Javanese epic poem dealing with the life and loves of one Baron Sakendher, Geschiedenis van Baron Sakendher. Een Javaansch verhaal van vertaling, […]

There’s a bunch of mad old guys in the neighbourhood who come out and feed the pigeons, which then crap all over benches, bicycles and toddlers. One of the locals has discovered how to make them stop. He puts a handful of salt in his pocket, lies in wait till he sees them emptying their […]

I’ve bumped into a number of Moorish poet-princes, but I’d never heard of poet-princess Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (994-1091). There’s a sensible, sourced account (in Spanish) here, and then there’s this. I had my doubts about Wijdan al shommari, and thought I’d be able to nail him/her on the basis of his/her (?) version of a […]

I know we’re not meant to read books using CORDE, but we do, and we enjoy it muchly, so we do. Here’s a bit from Diálogo argentino de la lengua by Avelino Herrero Mayor, published first in 1954 with 50 gorgeously anachronistic dialogues teaching the art of talking and writing propane, and then again in […]

All the birds here are, of course, flourishing, but better safe than sorry.

Margaret Marks says that the Marxist-Leninists are not giving away balloons in the German elections. I hope this is because they can’t afford them rather than for ideological reasons. While it is true that Jimmy Connolly saw in them the nemesis of the working classes, a progressive balloon vendor appears in one of my favourite […]

Aus, ous i caca, Birds, eggs and shit. The scooter went by too fast for me to enquire further.

One of the words I missed yesterday was kletskop, apparently used in Antwerp to mean “baldie”. I’ve only seen it before in the sense of “chatterbox”, but here I guess that klets is onomatopoeiac, representing the sound made by smacking a bald bonce.
A while back a clown was operating outside Zurich on Plaza de Cataluña. […]

Of course it is the fault of those damn Muslims:
The Marchenero is one of the oldest pouter breeds, and it is a breed that was developed in Spain in a period of time covering almost on thousand years.
In order to understand the beginnings or ancient history, a brief history lesson is in order. During the […]

Two old people were arguing this afternoon under the memorial to Joan Amades on Calle Carmen in the Raval about whether the pigeons should be fed. The argument proceeded along roughly the same lines as in the 1950s Parisian skirmish recorded in Juan Goytisolo’s Señas de identidad (1966), in which the old man is determined […]

I’m beginning to suspect that some people come out walking principally for the bizarre drinking opportunities encountered on the way.
This morning we were having coffee, shots and doughnuts in an Andalusian bar in Nou Barris (one of the many variations on the Collserola ridge route) when a ridiculously sleek blue car with XXL wheels […]

The raven didn’t hear me coming, so it broke away from the cliff at the last moment, struggled to remain airborne, and then climbed with a clumsy whooshing of wings out of the shadows and above the ridge, where it found the thermal, flexed its wing-fingers, and hung motionless for an age, the sun glinting […]

Better no jobs than a few English-speaking seagulls. Ah, my people.

Bit old-fashioned, probably still works, though the pollo doesn’t look too happy about being faxed to hungry consumers:

Whatever’s happening in Najaf today, it’s never going to be half as frightening as South Africa. IOL tells of a newsreader trying to interview an on-the-spot reporter while, unbeknown to her, the latter is being robbed by a gunman:
As Katopodis crossed live to Thaw at the first take, his cellphone stayed on - with inaudible […]

Kofi Abrampah was born in Ghana and studied molecular science at Rhode Island College, from which school he subsequently obtained his doctorate. He is currently employed by Amersham as a nuclear pharmacist which, according to Africa’s finest portal, GhanaWeb, means that “he compounds and prepares radio pharmaceutics (radioactive drugs).” So what do you think he […]

This cemetery photo was taken near the beginning of an as yet undocumented walk which culminates in a bath in a 30m waterfall. It’s interesting because the flying beast rather resembles a dragon in dove’s clothing.

In the Middle Ages anyone of any commercial talent (and his/her mum) had visions and stored some human bones in the new toilet chapel extension of the pig shed nave of the temple next to that handy spring holy source on the hillside. Here, extracted by moderately cunning device from Amazon, is the relevant part of the ToC of Eileen Gardiner’s (not completely exhaustive) Medieval Visions of Heaven and Hell: A Sourcebook:

Yet another triumph for capitalism: try out show me your ass and spit at me on Burger King’s Subservient Chicken.
Via Language Log.

Barcelona council has released a couple of specimens of “native” ducks into the city’s parks and is contemplating a similar campaign involving squirrels. The ducks have been operated on to stop them fleeing to suburbs without Chinese restaurants, but in general this is good stuff. Right? Wait a minute:

While garden show presenters who can’t tell the difference between cannabis and cabbage would probably do better sticking to alcohol, I’m intrigued to note that healthcare scammers, All Nutritional Supplements, are advertising bags of Jamaican bat guano, apparently for human use. (Yes, it’ll also do wonders for your cabbages, although the Scots may want to […]

Handy performance tips for the new eggcounting

Ben Berg:
Kanjigate (v.). To write in kanji.
Langmaker is a site for people who like creating new words and languages. Here’s the history of Chicken.