Birds

Birds of a feather. I think if I were to choose a Disney character - it would have to be Donald Duck. I could quite easily mimic his face, but not his voice. I always preferred him over Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, both of whom though having edge, had a certain nastiness to them. Donald Duck though always scheming and with a positive ducky glee in his eyes when his plots work, remained a comic creature with a heart as seen in his romancing and in his attitude to his nephews. The Warner Brothers' characters lack real empathy. Having said this, I always found Mickey Mouse to be mawkish. Now that is a lovely word. Mawkish: from the word maggot perhaps, So, yes Donald Duck enters that list of birds in my private remembered aviary. Another bird which I remember with fondness is the white-bellied sea eagle of Singapore. Quite a mouthful, its scientific name sounds like bad breath: Haliaeetus leucogaster. The reason why this bird is important, is because it appeared on a Singapore postage stamp. I link this to geese. Again for the same reason. My father had decided I was to collect bird and space stamps, and from a Sikh selling stamps on Orchard Road got a bundle of Chinese stamps three of which were actually Japanese :

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Japan-1949-Hiroshige-geese-sheet-5-MNH-FVF-defect-/180477206282



They were thrown out by accident when my mum was housecleaning. I was a tad upset. But then on the other hand I am not the tidiest of people. Years later I was to go to Japan and I became interested in Japanese prints. Thanks to those geese I believe. Still in Singapore, I lived with my family in Jalan Bankett near a stream and a mini jungle. I daily saw so many of the birds listed here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_Singapore

Now I cannot really make my mind up if I saw a purple swamphen (common then) or the much rarer jacana visitor. I think it was the latter. Both are beautiful birds. As for the ubiquitous mynah bird, the talking bird of the Far East, I was told a story by an American officer (one with a lots of medals) on leave during the Vietnam war. His story merged with his recounting the meetings with Charlies. I thought he was quite something at the time - and I also liked John Wayne in the Green Berets. How times change!! Another common bird was the beautiful golden oriole, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_oriole . It seems like a bird dreamt up by James Elroy Flecker. A bird that causes a titter among Americans, it the titmice. The blue tit is the little bird of W.C. Fields' heart , his chickadee in Americano. My French master a keen bird watcher told me as I walked with him in a park near Alnwick castle, that the blue tit call sounded like a bicycle pump. Now maybe I am making it up, but one outing some boys took a bicycle pump with them. A friend of mine kept pigeons. They were his love. Darwin loved them too. My mother however was not so keen on them. I had Joey the guinea pig in lieu. I think I actually liked Joey more. I find the little pigeons to be the ugliest things around - even invertebrates look prettier. But pigeon fanciers love them. I preferred sea birds. The kittiwakes that swooped and circled the cliffs of Howick. How many times have I used them in imagery. Those doll's eyes. The plumage.