Birds

"Could the whip-poor-will or the cat of the glen/Look into my eyes and be bold?"

"I took the wren's nest;— Heaven forgive me! Its merry architects so small Had scarcely finished their wee hall, That, empty still, and neat and fair, Hung idly in the summer air."

"See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs, And mounts exulting on triumphant wings: Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound, Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground."

"Much that is good and all that is evil has gathered itself up into the Western Gull. He is rather the handsomest of the blue-mantled Laridae, for the depth of color in the mantle, in sharp contrast with the snowy plumage of back and breast, gives him an appearance of sturdiness and quality which is not easily dispelled by subsequent knowledge of the black heart within. As a scavanger, the Western Gull is impeccable. Wielding the besom of hunger, he and his kind sweep the beaches clean and purge the water-front of all pollution. But a scavanger is not necessarily a good citizen. Call him a ghoul, rather, for the Western Gull is cruel of beak and bottomless of maw. Pity, with him, is a thing unknown; and when one of their own comrades dies, these feathered jackals fall upon him without compunction, a veritable Leichnamveranderungsgebrauchsgesellschaft. If he thus mistreats his own kind, be assured that this gull asks only two questions of any other living thing: First, "Am I hungry?" (Ans., "Yes.") Second, "Can I get away with it?" (Ans., "I'll try.")"

"The dinosaurs are not extinct. The colorful and successful diversity of the living birds is a continuing expression of basic dinosaur biology."

"I needed the birds worse & worse as I got older as if some crack had opened in the human scheme of things & only birds with their sharp morning notes had the sense for any new day."

"Winged mimic of the woods! thou motley fool! Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe? Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule Pursue thy fellows still with jest and jibe: Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe; Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school; To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, Arch-mocker and mad abbot of misrule!"

"The fesant hens of Colchis, which have two ears as it were consisting of feathers, which they will set up and lay down as they list."

"Invite the rook who high amid the boughs, In early spring, his airy city builds, And ceaseless caws amusive."

"An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom.So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware."

"Thus the fable tells us, that the wren mounted as high as the eagle, by getting upon his back."

"I do not be­lieve birds deserve to be put in a taxo­nomic class separate from dinosaurs."

"When it was assumed that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs, it was correspondingly presumed that their flight evolved among climbers that first glided and then developed powered flight. This has the advantage that we know that arboreal animals can evolve powered flight with the aid of gravity, as per bats. When it was realized that birds descended from deinonychosaurs, many researchers switched to the hypothesis that running dinosaurs learned to fly from the ground up. This has the disadvantage that it is not certain whether it is practical for tetrapod flight to evolve among ground runners working against gravity. The characteristics of birds indicate that they evolved from dinosaurs that had first evolved as bipedal runners, and then evolved into long armed climbers. If the ancestors of birds had been entirely arboreal, then they should be semiquadrupedal forms whose sprawling legs were integrated into the main airfoil, like bats. That birds are bipeds whose erect legs are separate from the wings indicates that their ancestors evolved to run."

"Every feature that is known to exist in every bird universally accepted as such is also found on dinosaurs: four-chambered heart, fused caudal vertebrae, gastroliths, even the avian respiratory system have all been found on fossil theropods, especially dromaeosaurs and maniraptors. You can distinguish birds among dinosaurs, but it is no longer possible to distinguish birds from dinosaurs."

"Hail to thee, far above the rest In joy of voice and pinion! Thou, linnet! in thy green array, Presiding spirit here to-day, Dost lead the revels of the May; And this is thy dominion."

"Then from the neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water, Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music, That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen."

"Or have you mark'd a partridge quake, Viewing the towering falcon nigh? She cuddles low behind the brake: Nor would she stay; nor dares she fly."

"Fesaunt excedeth all fowles in sweetnesse and holsomnesse, and is equall to capon in nourishynge."

"The song-birds leave us at the summer's close, Only the empty nests are left behind. And pipings of the quail among the sheaves."

"Those Rooks, dear, from morning till night, They seem to do nothing but quarrel and fight, And wrangle and jangle, and plunder."

"Tell me not of joy: there's none Now my little sparrow's gone; He, just as you, Would toy and woo, He would chirp and flatter me, He would hang the wing awhile, Till at length he saw me smile, Lord! how sullen he would be!"

"Behold, within the leafy shade, Those bright blue eggs together laid! On me the chance-discovered sight Gleamed like a vision of delight."

"And then the wren gan scippen and to daunce."

"For the poor wren. The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl."

"Among the dwellings framed by birds In field or forest with nice care, Is none that with the little wren's In snugness may compare."

"The bird is a mouse. A frustrating, feathered mouse, no more inclined to be seen by mortal eyes than your average leprechaun."

"The more that we learn about these animals the more we find that there is basically no difference between birds and their closely related dinosaur ancestors like velociraptor. Both have wishbones, brooded their nests, possess hollow bones, and were covered in feathers. If animals like velociraptor were alive today our first impression would be that they were just very unusual looking birds."

"If not for the long tail, one might mistake a theropod for a big, toothy, marauding bird in the dark. That theropods are birdlike is logical, since birds are their closest living relatives. Remember that next time you eat a drumstick or scramble some eggs."

"Imagine, if you will, a world filled with billions of dinosaurs. A world where they can be found in thousands of shapes, sizes, colours and classes in every habitable pocket of the planet. Imagine them from the desert dunes of the Sahara to the frozen rim of the Antarctic Circle - and from the balmy islands of the South Pacific to the high flanks of the Himalayas. The thing is, you don't have to imagine very hard. In fact, wherever you live, you can probably step outside and look up into the trees and skies to find them. For the dinosaurs are the birds and they are all around you. Dinosaurs didn't die out when an asteroid hit the earth 66 million years ago. Everything you were told as a child was wrong."

"From nesting, brooding and sex, to metabolism, development and even the diseases that afflicted them, many of the traits found in birds today were inherited from the dinosaurs. The boundary between dinosaurs and birds has become utterly blurred."

"I do sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing."

"Linnets * * * sit On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock."

"So have I seen, in black and white, A prating thing, a magpie hight, Majestically stalk; A stately worthless animal, That plies the tongue, and wags the tail, All flutter, pride, and talk."

"I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. “Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

"Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— To thy high requiem become a sod.Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown:"

"Ah, nut-brown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants! And ah, ye poachers!—'Tis no sport for peasants."

"Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest, But may imagine how the bird was dead, Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?"

"Like as a feareful partridge, that is fledd From the sharpe hauke which her attacked neare, And falls to ground to seeke for succor theare, Whereas the hungry spaniells she does spye, With greedy jawes her ready for to teare."

"In jalousie I rede eek thou hym bynde And thou shalt make him couche as doeth a quaille."

"A female California quail was scratching in a ground feeder outside the farm kitchen window when I washed my dinner dishes, among house finches, chickadees, sparrows. The graceful oval body looked quite large amnog the little birds. She scratched and pecked vigorously. I love to see quail being quail, they are so full of quailness."

"An honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails."

"“What is that?” I gasped, nearly blinded by the unexpected vermillion patches on the blackbird’s epaulets. I watched as the bird threw back its head, opened wide its beak and let out a sound so primal it left me marvelling: this was as close as I’d ever stand to dinosaurs. If this bird had been here all along, I thought, what else had I been missing?"

"Where in venerable rows Widely waving oaks enclose The moat of yonder antique hall, Swarm the rooks with clamorous call; And, to the toils of nature true, Wreath their capacious nests anew."

"Across the narrow beach we flit, One little sand-piper and I; And fast I gather, bit by bit, The scattered drift-wood, bleached and dry, The wild waves reach their hands for it, The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, As up and down the beach we flit, One little sand-piper and I."

"The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be."

"The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, That it had it head bit off by it young."

"The moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl."

"Where deep and misty shadows float In forest's depths is heard thy note. Like a lost spirit, earthbound still, Art thou, mysterious whip-poor-will."

"Birds teach us that borders are just lines drawn on a map—a lesson we can all take to heart."

"The worlds most frequent flyers don't have platinum status, free upgrades, or even passports. Every hour, millions of these undocumented immigrants pour across major political borders, and nobody thinks of building walls to keep them out. It would be impossible to anyway. Birds are true global citizens, free to come and go as they please."