[Ttha-potm] "In a Museum" TTHA Poem of the Month for November 2008

[Rosemarie Morgan]

One wonders how a curator could know the sound of a primeval bird ? I would 
be interested in knowing more of this.   Certainly flightless birds such as 
modern-day chickens and ancient dodos (flightless, so presumably croakers?) 
perform a different call note due to different mating patterns.. However, 
modern-day chickens do have a very pretty chirrupping call which I would 
call birdsong . It certainly has variable musical tonality and rhythm and 
is delightful to hear. They express this when they come into nesting mode. 
I suspect that only free-rangers like myself  might know of this since 
commercially raised hens are denied all "nesting" experience.

  I think Patrick will correct me if I'm wrong but I think flightless birds 
generally croak and squawk and MAYBE (?)demonstrate this chirupping song 
rather than singing a melodic Blackbird-style tune.   But in Hardy's poem 
is there any evidence that his bird was flightless?

I apologise if my zoological/ornithological passions are interfering here 
but I *think the *song thrush* --- a song bird-- was a primeval bird, 
so........

Do correct me if I am wrong

Best
Rosemarie.



  "In a Museum" and "Haunting Fingers" (a Museum," from the cast of an 
ancient bird that could, as a curator assured J. O. Bailey, only croak to 
one that was capable of cooing! In "Haunting Fingers" Hardy's 
improvisations create characteristic "performances" iffice:office" /> Gene 
Davis