For the Birds!
Though I don't consider myself an "animal person," I've always been fascinated by birds. The only pets my son ever had were 2 birds---ducks. (See my very first blog, "Four-legged Friends" from Feb 12.) Not a happy memory. But I digress.Recently I received an exceptional link featuring the lyrebird and hosted by David/Richard(?) Attenborough. If you haven't seen it, I recommend you take a moment to watch it. Amazing!
http://www.neatorama.com/2006/06/14/lyrebird-master-of-mimicry/
Also, from Wikipedia re the charming painting above:
The lyrebird is so called because the male bird has a spectacular tail (consisting of 16 highly modified feathers (two long slender lyrates at the centre of the plume, two broader medians on the outside edges and twelve filamentaries arrayed between them), which was originally thought to resemble a lyre. This happened when a lyrebird specimen (which had been taken from Australia to England during the early 1800's) was prepared for display at the British Museum by a taxidermist who had never seen a live lyrebird. The taxidermist mistakenly thought that the tail would resemble a lyre, and that the tail would be held in a similar way to that of a peacock during courtship display, and so he arranged the feathers in this way. Later, John Gould (who had also never seen a live lyrebird), painted the lyrebird from the British Museum specimen.
Although very beautiful, the male lyrebird's tail is not as in John Gould's painting, nor is the tail held in such a manner. Instead, the male lyrebird's tail is fanned over the lyrebird during courtship display, with the tail completely covering his head and back.
posted by goldenlucyd @ 4:40 PM
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