Phoenix.

A ventral view of the bird between two trees, with wings out stretched and head to one side, beating its wingsd and looking for the sun.

A ventral view of the bird between two trees, with wings out stretched and head to one side, beating its wings and looking for the sun.

The phoenix turns to face the sun, beats its wings to fan the flames and is consumed. The image may equally show the bird rising from its own ashes, a symbol of the resurrection.

The phoenix turns to face the sun, beats its wings to fan the flames and is consumed. The image may equally show the bird rising from its own ashes, a symbol of the resurrection.

Text Translation:

[Of the phoenix] The phoenix is a bird of Arabia, so called either because its colouring is Phoenician purple, , or because there is only one of its kind in the whole world. It lives for upwards of five hundred years, and when it observes that it has grown old, it erects a funeral pyre for itself from small branches of aromatic plants, and having turned to face the rays of the sun, beating its wings, it deliberately fans the flames for itself and is consumed in the fire. But on the ninth day after that, the bird rises from its own ashes.

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Halcyon.

Portrait of a blue bird with webbed feet and a saw bill, a Halcyon.

Portrait of a blue bird with webbed feet and a saw bill, a Halcyon.

Text Translation:

[Of the halcyon] The halcyon is a seabird which produces its young on the shore, depositing its eggs in the sand, around midwinter. It chooses as the time to hatch its young, the period when the sea is at its highest and the waves break more fiercely than usual on the shore; with the result that the grace with which this bird is endowed shines forth the more, with the dignity of an unexpected calm. For it is a fact that when the sea has been raging, once the halcyon’s eggs have been laid, it suddenly becomes gentle, all the stormy winds subside, the strong breezes lighten, and as the wind drops, the sea lies calm, until the halcyon hatches its eggs.

The eggs take seven days to hatch, at the end of which the halcyon brings forth its young and the hatching is at an end. The halcyon takes a further seven days to feed its chicks until they begin to grow into young birds. Such a short feeding-time is nothing to marvel at, since the completion when the hatching process takes so few days.

This little bird is endowed by God with such grace that sailors know with confidence that these fourteen days will be days of fine weather and call them ‘the halcyon days’, in which there will be no period of stormy weather.

Folio 54v – the partridge, continued. [De altione]; Of the halcyon.

Partridge.

A partridge steals eggs from another's nest.

A partridge steals eggs from another’s nest.

Text Translation:

Of the partridge The partridge gets its name from the sound it makes. It is a cunning and unclean bird. For one male mounts another and in their reckless lust they forget their sex. The partridge is so deceitful that one will steal another’s eggs. But the trick does not work. For when the young hear the cry of their real mother, their natural instinct is to leave the bird that is brooding them and return to the mother who produced them.

The Devil imitates their example, trying to rob the eternal Creator of those he has created; if he succeeds somehow in bringing together men who are foolish and lack any sense of their own inner strength, he cossets them with seductive pleasures of the flesh. But when they have heard the voice of Christ, growing spiritual wings, they wisely fly away and entrust themselves to Christ.

The nests built by partridges are skilfully fortified. For they cover their hiding-place with thorny bushes so that animals attacking them are kept at bay by the prickly branches. The partridge uses dust to cover its eggs and returns secretly to the place, which it has marked. Frequent intercourse tires it. The females often carry their young in order to deceive the males, who frequently attack the chicks, all the more impatiently when the chicks fawn on them. The males fight over their choice of mate, and believe they can use the losers for sex in place of the females. The latter are so affected by lust, that if the wind blows towards them from the males, they become pregnant by the males’ scent. Then, if any man approaches the place where the patridge is brooding, the mothers come out and deliberately show themselves to them; pretending that their feet or wings are injured, they put on a show of moving slowly, as if they could be caught in no time; by this trick they act as decoys to the approaching men and fool them into moving far away from the nest.

The young are not slow, either, to watch out for themselves. When they sense that they have been seen, they lie on their backs holding up small clods of earth in their claws, camouflaging themselves so skilfully, that they lie hidden from detection.

A partridge seems to be an unlikely symbol of unbridled lust. Those birds were a common dish on medieval tables; I wonder if all the lustiness was also assigned to eating them.

Folio 54r – [De perdice]; Of the partridge.

The Daily Bird #578.

A Crested Pigeon, from Lofty: While having lunch in a local reserve, I heard a noise like an old fashioned bicycle pump. It turned out to come from this Crested Pigeon hiding in the foliage of a nearby tree. Once spotted it jumped down to the ground and acted all innocent. Of course having heard this one, the next time I stopped at a reserve, loads of these pigeons were strutting around waving their tails at each other but I had left the camera home. Click for full size!

© Lofty, all rights reserved.

Jay.

Bibliothèque Municipale de Troyes, MS 177, Folio 154v. A multi-colored jay with a crest on its head.

Bibliothèque Municipale de Troyes, MS 177, Folio 154v. A multi-colored jay with a crest on its head.

Text Translation:

[Of the jay] Rabanus says of the jay: ‘The jay gets is name from its talkativeness, garrulitas; not, as some would have it, because jays fly in flocks, gregatim; clearly, they are named for the cry they give. It is a most talkative species of bird and makes an irritating noise, and can signify either the empty prattle of philosophers or the harmful wordiness of heretics.’ More can be said of the nature of the jay. For jays signify both gossips and gluttons. For those who devote themselves to gluttony take pleasure, after eating, in repeating gossip and in lending an ear to slander. The jay lives in the woods and flies chattering from one tree to another, as a talkative man ceaselessly tells others about his neighbours, even the shameful things he knows about them. When the jay sees someone pass, it chatters, and if it finds anyone hiding from the world, it does the same, just as a talkative man slanders not only worldly men but also those hidden whom a religious house conceals.

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