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Where celebration and festivities are in order, it's time to put up the bunting. Bunting used to mean a material for flags and ribbons, or even flags on ships. Today it's a more general term for celebration-type decorations like strings of triangle-shaped flags, sometimes using national colors.
As bird life, there is the bunting. They occur as both Old and New World species. Equivalent to the American sparrow, some known as finches. Found in Eurasia, Africa, North America.
Small, stubby birds, conical beaks. Eat seeds. Many varieties, includes crested bunting,
slaty bunting, corn bunting, yellowhammer, pine bunting, cirl bunting, Tibetan bunting, rock bunting, Godlewski's bunting, meadow bunting, Jankowski's bunting, grey-necked bunting, Cinereous bunting, Ortolan bunting, white-capped bunting, Cretzschmar's bunting, house bunting, striolated bunting, lark-like bunting, cinnamon-breasted bunting, Socotra bunting, cape bunting, Ochre-rumped bunting, Tristram's bunting, chestnut-eared bunting, little bunting, yellow-browed bunting, rustic bunting, yellow-throated bunting, yellow-breasted bunting, golden-breasted bunting, Somali bunting, brown-rumped bunting, Cabanis' bunting, chestnut bunting, black-headed bunting, red-headed bunting, yellow bunting, black-faced bunting, grey bunting, Pallas' reed bunting, reed bunting, corn bunting, Arctic bunting, snow bunting, McKay's bunting.
Painted bunting
Indigo bunting
Lazuli bunting
Ortolan bunting
Lapland bunting
Snow Bunting
Cranes are featured in both OHMSS and CR (2006) (presumably in many others too). There are birds which share the same name. So "cranes" are in the Bond films.
Macaws are kind of fascinating, seeing them with their owners at parks and open venues. One co-worker has two, including one that has a missing top bill he's had for many, many years. They bond, if I can use that word.
Cranes in Bond films fit the namesake idea. There's also the Asian connection where they're used in art like the screens in the background of the YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE sets. We can go there.
And the Frasier clip is mediawesome. Who among us would join in on a singalong like that. Or at least correct the lyrics.
Not a pet, but I work at a pet store and we had a Conure that I named Sean Conurey.
Also three Bond films to date have been set in Turkey.
I inherited 2 budgies after the breakup of my marriage...called Bonnie & Clyde.
I hope they have a clean criminal record! :D
Hahaha apart from being noisy little buggers,yes !!
Oh, careful. Could be a nice nuisance case in that, Barry!
True,true !!
Always looking for the legal angle, me. :))
It's a camera reference mainly, but yes, you could read it that way too, I'm sure. Interesting.
The crane is found in classic Chinese martial art styles (Wing Chun; Hung Gar/tiger crane; Shaolin Five Animals). Don't think Wai Lin struck the pose in TOMORROW NEVER DIES, but still. The crane and its movements represent fluidity and grace.
In bird form, cranes are found in traditional Asian art. For example, there are cranes in the background screens when Kissy massages Bond in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. Japan's cultural focus is the red-crowned crane.
Represent luck, fidelity, long life (even immortality). Japanese culture says the crane lives a thousand years, and grants favors for acts of sacrifice. Appears on the 1000 yen note.
A popular subject for the origami art of paper folding. Japanese legend says folding a thousand receives a granted wish from a crane. The famous post-World War II story of schoolgirl Sadako Sasaki and her quest to fold a thousand cranes before her death from leukemia (as related to the bombing of Hiroshima) added the crane as a symbol of peace and the innocent victims of war. [She did.]
The red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis aka Japanese crane or Manchurian crane) is considered among the rarest. Striking black and white with bright red-colored skin as a cap. Each Spring and Summer breed in eastern Russia or northeastern China. In Fall, migrate to Korea and east central China to winter. A non-migrating resident population in eastern Hokkaidō Japan. Total population estimated as 2,750 in the wild (of those, 1,000 in Japan).
Red-crowned crane
Origami crane
Funny, but she must understand there are no penguins in Iceland and the arctic.
Likewise polar bears in Antarctica.
There's also the penguin poster seen on the streets of Tokyo as OO7 makes his way to the sumo fight in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. Similar to the old Kool cigarette ads, a little different though.
Penguin Group has its Bond association, publishing paperback versions of the Fleming novels for many years.
It's all pretty spare. Until Bond gets to Antarctica (or Argentina, Chile, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, the Galapagos Islands, or Ecuador), to make up a decent description really needs something more specific to draw on.
I choose HAPPY FEET, the delightful film by director George Miller (I haven't actually seen it, but it's got a fine reputation). Somebody point out its place in Bond history, and I'll continue this penguin entry.
Likely you experienced those events first-hand. Will provide a proper response later this date, thanks.
Penguins are flightless birds with flippers, at home in the water.
The emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) is the tallest of penguins. Back and head are black, contrasted with white belly, yellow breast, ear-patches yellow. Dines on fish, krill, squid. Remain underwater up to 18 minutes, may dive to 535 meters (1,755 feet). This species can breed in the Antarctic winter, in colonies of thousands.
Skua, hostile to young penguins, are featured. These sea birds can be found from the North Pole to the South. Dull gray-brown above, whitish below. South polar skua (Stercorarius maccormicki) at Antarctica frequent penguin colonies to scavenge carcasses and steal small chicks. Harass other sea birds to abscond their catch, usually fish.
Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) frequent the coast of Antarctica. So named for Adélie Land, which is in turn named for the wife of Jules Dumont d'Urville, French explorer and discoverer of the species in 1840. Small, the stereotypical penguin: black and white tuxedo appearance, white ring around eye, feathers at base of the red bill. A favorite of skuas, leopard seals, killer whales.
The rockhopper penguin is the world's smallest, about 20 inches in height. Unlike other penguins they have red eyes, an orange beak, pink feet, and a head of yellow and black feathers. In their rocky habitat they hop from spot to spot.
The Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) is South American, named after the explorer who discovered it in 1520.
"Forsteri". Heh, heh. "Adélie".
Nothing on screen. Dialog. Jewelry. Nada.
In Die Another Day Bond tells his latest pursuit, Jinx, "No owls in Los Organos. Nothing to see 'til morning. Not out there anyway."
Incidentally, the man himself, Pierce Brosnan, played one Grey Owl in Richard Attenborough's film of the same name three years earlier.
Furthermore the Owl City song "Bombshell Blonde" features the lyrics: "I'm James Bond, live to die another day."
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And of course, owls feature prominently in Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner, which is receiving its first official sequel in October of this year and which stars, among others, James Bond's own Dave Bautista.
Nothing on owls, indeed!
There are no (native) turkeys in Turkey, but you can have Christmas there. I also don't think there's an instance of a non-proper noun "turkey" in the Bond film dialog, not even by Mr. Big or Jinx. Surprising. And they don't taste like chicken.
The turkey. Two species across the Americas. There is the common--simultaneously wild and domestic--turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) from North America to Mexico. Also the ocellated turkey (Meleagris ocellata) on the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. Large birds, males prettier than the female, meaning more colorful with a fleshy wattle of skin hanging over its beak.
Speculation says the first Europeans in America mistakenly associated the bird with guineafowl. Turkish merchants then imported the bird to Europe and erroneously called it "Turkey coqs", later "turkey fowl", "Indian turkeys", "Turkey birds", eventually "turkeys". [Another notion says the birds came from the Middle East, with similar name attachments.] English navigator William Strickland is credited with introducing the bird to Europe in 1550; he successfully sought out a coat of arms with a "turkey-cock in his pride proper". Dramatic.
William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. FABIAN: (aside)
O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him.
How he jets under his advanced plumes!
Common turkey
Ocellated turkey
tur·key - ˈtərkē - noun
1. a large mostly domesticated game bird of North America: bald head, male has red wattles. A prized food, popular dining especially for Thanksgiving, Christmas.
2. extremely (or completely) unsuccessful [esp. a play or movie]
With turkey there are only two. For owls there are many, many, many varieties. Witness my Hooters calendar representing Brazil--all kinds of possibilities.
As luck would have it there are 7 owls resident to Cuba I can highlight. So point taken.
Sidebar among sidebars: is it urban legend that Hooters restaurants, absent the menu, serve up "007 wings" meaning chicken (not owl) wings coated in blue cheese, then breading, then deep fried? Or do they exist?
So those lines were likely...misdirection.
There are easily 200 species of owls, known for nighttime hunting and pretty solitary ways. They use binocular vision (eyes fixed in sockets), eyes and ears pointed forward, able to rotate their head 270 degrees. In a couple ways owls operate on stealth mode: their coloring renders them virtually invisible in some lighting conditions; the serrated edges of their feathers dampen sound, silencing the beats of their wings. Meanwhile their flat facial structure directs sound to their ear-holes. An example of sexual dimorphism: females generally larger than males. Owls feed on small animals, bugs, birds, some specialize in fish. Swallowing most food whole or whole parts (bone-in), convert bone and other material into pellets, to be ejected through the mouth.
In Western culture owls indicate wisdom, dating back to Ancient Greece and Athens: the owl is the symbol of Athena, goddess of wisdom.
In Shakepeare, the bird flags bad omen or acts as a funereal bird, night monster, abomination. John Keats wrote in Hyperion of a "gloom-bird's hated screech." On a positive note, owl's eggs were considered a cure for the hangover.
Owls are found worldwide excepting Antarctica. Stygian, bare-legged, Cuban pygmy-, barn, and burrowing owls are all native to Cuba.
Stygian owls are named for their dark appearance--stygian as related to the River Styx but more implying dark, dismal.
Bare-legged (a.k.a. Cuban screech) owls forage in forest canopies.
Cuban pygmy-owls are the most frequently seen, nesting in tree holes made by woodpeckers.
Barn owls are THE most common bird found on land other than desert and polar areas.
The long-eared owl and short-eared owl are migrants that winter in Cuba. Both fly in from mainland North American forests, and are notable for their (unusual for owls) communal roosting.
Stygian owl
Bare-legged owl
Cuban Pygmy-owl
Barn owl
Burrowing owl
Long-eared owl
Short-eared owl