This week’s bird in the Eurasian Hoopoe, a small bird which really seems to punch about its weight, culturally speaking. Here are some excerpts from the Wikipedia entry:
“They were considered sacred in Ancient Egypt, and were “depicted on the walls of tombs and temples”. During the Old Kingdom, the hoopoe was used in the iconography as a symbolic code to indicate the child was the heir and successor of his father.[28] They achieved a similar standing in Minoan Crete.[22]
Hoopoes were seen as a symbol of virtue in Persia. A hoopoe was a leader of the birds in the Persian book of poems The Conference of the Birds (“Mantiq al-Tayr” by Attar) and when the birds seek a king, the hoopoe points out that the Simurgh was the king of the birds.[30]
Hoopoes were thought of as thieves across much of Europe, and harbingers of war in Scandinavia.[31] In Estonian tradition, hoopoes are strongly connected with death and the underworld; their song is believed to foreshadow death for many people or cattle.[32]“
When its wings are spread, it made me think of the invasion stripes the Allies painted on their airplanes before the D-Day invasion. Anything without big, bold stripes was presumed to be an enemy. For comparison, I included a C-47 like the one my grandfather flew, painted in that color scheme. Thanks, vets!
I forgot to save links from where I got photos this week, but here is a link to Wikipedia, where I got the excerpt above and the header image: https://tinyurl.com/3tpf6zer
