Bird spotted

[Gob]

Guess where? No cheating...

[wesw]

great blue heron? hmmmm... white house?

[Crackpot]

Downing street?

[Guinevere]

Bad omen, wherever it is.

Also guessing #10 based on the door transom...

(Although I admit, I was expecting a different kind of bird)

[Gob]

Give that pair a prize!!

No amount of security measures was able to keep an uninvited visitor out of Downing Street this afternoon - after a heron flew into Number 10.
The bird perched itself on top of the Prime Minister's front door, after seeking refuge in the hallway from the unwanted attentions of a crow.
It was photographed by an astonished Conservative aide who admitted he was glad that it had flown away - because it is a bad omen in Greek mythology.



The heron is not the first animal to have escaped the attentions of the Downing Street security guards to wander past Number 10

[rubato]

Egrets and Herons are bad luck? Never heard that before.

yrs,
rubato

[Guinevere]

Wild birds inside a home are considered an omen of ill luck, even death.

[wesw]

yes, wild birds are best left at the bar....

[Gob]

Origins: Most superstitions came into being during a time when what made the world tick was far more of a mystery than it is now. Our ancestors were quick to assign subtexts to events as Bird one of the ways they tried to make sense of an existence that appeared frighteningly capricious and unpredictable. All manner of occurrences, both the mundane and the unusual, were subject to scrutiny and interpretation.

Everyday things, such as the way fires burned or candles sputtered, were studied for their portents. But it was to out-of-the-ordinary events that special attention was paid, because these were believed to foretell the greatest shifts of fortune. Unusual incidents were understood as urgent messages falling directly from the lips of the gods.

Strange behavior on the part of animals was cause for concern. A hen that took to crowing, for instance, heralded a death in the owner's family, as did the sudden howling of otherwise placid dogs or the midday crowing of a rooster. Wild birds that tried to get inside houses (whether they succeeded or not) were also seen as presaging deaths. A bird that flew in through an open window, circled the room or landed on the back of someone's chair, then flew back out was saying as clearly as an omen can that someone who lived in that dwelling was about to clutch the lily. Birds that hit glass windows were likewise trying to provide the same message, as did those who sat upon sills peering into rooms or tapping on the glass. Some placed no time limit on when the death was to take place; others said it would happen within the year.

Because of this superstition, some folks will not even keep a pet bird, not so much as a budgie or canary. And there are those whose aversion to indoor avians runs

so strong that they eschew pictures of our feathered friends, even representations of them on wallpaper. One of those persons was Lucille Ball, who dated her antipathy to birds to the 1915 death of her father when she was three years old — she recalled that a picture fell from the wall that fateful day, and a bird flew in the window to become trapped inside the house. Even as an adult, the comedienne would refuse to take lodgings in any hotel that displayed pictures of birds, either framed or incorporated into their wallpaper. She was no less particular about her home — in the 1950s she had Japanese silk print wallpaper that went for $90 a roll ripped out of the front hallway of her Beverly Hills home because only after the paper was up did it become apparent the shadowy images of birds were part of its pattern.

One of the older superstition books we consulted stated that interior decorators knew better than to suggest wallpaper with little birdies on it simply because this belief was then so widespread.

Not everyone holds the opinion that having birds fly into the house is bad news. Our cats, for instance, view such incursions as having their prayers answered.

Barbara "good fortune hunters" Mikkelson

[Econoline]

Not everyone holds the opinion that having birds fly into the house is bad news. Our cats, for instance, view such incursions as having their prayers answered.

[Guinevere]

Love that! Although a heron likely outweighs my cat.

[rubato]

Wild birds inside a home are considered an omen of ill luck, even death.

So nothing specific to herons then? I'm glad to hear it, as a life-long heron fan I was concerned that there was some prejudice against them I had never heard of. I couldn't think of any reason they might be seen as ominous although they're hell on snakes, frogs, small rodents and even fish. I seen them catch all of the above in the wild.


yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

crap rube, I m a big heron fan too. you like bees and herons, we re like brothers....

I even wrote a song that included them, kinda in the style of the song, "indian outlaw", I think that s the title anyway, one of the lines goes, "..I m.half Cherokee and Choctawwwww!!!!..., my baby, she s a chippewaw, she s one of a kind" my which inspired my song.

I ll see how much I remember of it......

, no don t thank me, it s my pleasure...

I m an eastern shore outlaw, like the great white egret.....
an' I fish where I want tooooo, and I have no regret...
I follow the rockfish, wherever they ruuuun.....
an' I scoop up the soft crabs, like the great blue he-ron

oh johnny law-aw, don t take me awa-ay
we ve fished these wa-ters, from the olden days

I m a little bit injuuuun, from my mom-mom s mi-maw...
a little wild irish, from the emerald isle...
renegade English, done run wild,
little bit a pirate, from down devil s isle....

I m an eastern shore outlaw, from the olden days....
oh johnny la-aw, don t take me awa-ay....

well there s more, but I can t remember it. it s written down somewhere. I wrote that driving back from crabbing one day in dame s quarter, formerly known as the damned quarter....

[wesw]

rube, even tho you and I are very different we still have our commonalities, people like me or conservatives like jim and meade aren t the enemy.

even tho I disagree with most of your political views, I would still be right there beside you when it came to protecting heron habitat, the estuaries and river systems and even the forests

when I lived in Whitehaven Maryland, there was a miles long dirt road called Muddy hole road, about half of it was a county maintained road. any way I used to drive down it to a little area by a creek on the public hunting land, and this blue heron used to fly right ahead of my truck right after I turned onto the road. he would just fly and coast ahead, and slightly above the truck, for like a quarter mile thru a wooded area where there was a canopy over the road. it was really cool....

[Guinevere]

Wild birds inside a home are considered an omen of ill luck, even death.

So nothing specific to herons then? I'm glad to hear it, as a life-long heron fan I was concerned that there was some prejudice against them I had never heard of. I couldn't think of any reason they might be seen as ominous although they're hell on snakes, frogs, small rodents and even fish. I seen them catch all of the above in the wild.


yrs,
rubato

No, I'm a heron fan too. I think I've posted one of my favorite heron pics before but I'll grab it again:

That's a black-crowned night heron in the tidal pond across from my house.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Nice birds, herons

[rubato]

NOT BABY DUCKS! NOT THAT!


On the other hand, ducks are such prolific breeders if someone didn't thin them out we'd be drowning in baby ducks in no time. You have to hand it to mama duck though, right in there doing her best.


yrs,
rubato