At last, we leave North America! This magnificent UFD comes from our own RQ. It’s posing prettily in a Latvian forest.
I love it. I love the lushness of that forest, and the slight quizzical tilt to this bird’s head. I love it’s white-patched wings gleaming against the darkness. I love the fact we finally have an opportunity to identify something that’s not from North America!
I did a wee bit o’ editing to brighten the image a bit, and cropped out some of the background, just cuz:
That really is a very lovely bird.
The forest got me free associating. First, it was a Dead Can Dance song, “Tell Me About the Forest (You Once Called Home) (YouTube).” I’ve always liked the lyrics quite a lot:
Farewell now my sister
Up ahead there lies your road
And your conscience walks beside you
It’s the best friend you will ever know
And the past is now your future
It bears witness to your soul
Make sure that the love you offer up
Does not fall on barren soil.For the wind cries of late
In the whispering grass.
Our way of life is held
In the spinning wheels of chance.I believe in the ways of an older law
When we used to dance to a different drum
And we are changing are ways
Yes we are taking on different roads
Tell me more about the forest
That you once called home.For the wind cries of late
In the whispering leaves
And the sun will turn to waste
The heavens we build above.Father teach your children
To treat our mother well
If we give her back her diamonds
She will offer up her pearl.But I’m not bitter no I’m surviving
To face the world, to raise the future.
So why don’t you tell me, come on and tell me
About the world you left behind.
Come on and tell me
But it’s not my favorite Dead Can Dance song ever, which made my mind skip to other forests, and In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss. It’s been sitting on my shelves for a long time. I couldn’t remember the short story of the same name contained within, so I curled up in my chair with the cat (who is delighted when I read, because it means that nasty computer isn’t in the way and she can have my lap all to herself) and read it. It’s about breast cancer, and I’m not sure that it had a happy ending. Sigh. Free association sometimes goes awry.
Speaking of Dead Can Dance, they did a song called “Bird.” Also not one of my favorites, but some nice person put together a vid with lots of beautiful birds, so you might enjoy that:
Gracias, RQ!
You, too, can have your very own UFDs identified! Just send me a photo or several, with UFD in the subject line, and a description of where the photo was taken. You can find me at dhunterauthor at yahoo dot com.
A male chaffinch, in breeding plumage.
The European Goldfinch or Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis), is a small passerine bird in the finch family.
It’s a male chaffinch.
Chaffinch it is, Fringilla coelebs. Called celibate due to the chaffinch female habit of migrating in the winter (at least in Sweden, which is where Linnaeus observed them), leaving the males to suffer through the snow and the cold all on their own.
Bonus points for finding out the Latvian name for it.
That’s quite a handsome bird! Nice photo, too, unlike the latest batch I sent to Dana. They’re mostly the result of using the digital zoom feature on an older digital camera!
Free association indeed. The bird reminded me of this dino-with-poetry.
That would be “žubīte”, rq, at least if the internets aren’t pulling a fast on on me (again!).
Meh, wrong.
Arrrgh! I go on holiday and we get a European UFD. Just to rub salt into the wound, it is a common bird in my garden as well.