Re: a real Phoenix (fwd)

[Ian Paulsen <birdbooker@zipcon.net>]

HI:
 FYI

-- 
Ian Paulsen
Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
A.K.A.: "Birdbooker"
"Rallidae all the way!"

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:32:45 +0100
From: David Lambert <David@dcandwpl.freeserve.co.uk>
To: birdbooker@zipcon.net
Subject: Re: a real Phoenix

How about this, an apparent variant on the bird behaviour called anting (some 
birds put ants under their wings, perhaps because formic acid kills parasites)?

In May, 1957, a tame rook named Niger, living in an aviary in my garden at East 
Horsley, in Surrey, disported himself on a heap of burning straw. With flames 
enveloping the lower part of his body and smoke drifting all around him, he 
flapped his wings, snatched at burning embers with his beak and appeared to be 
trying to put them under his wings. The sight of this was breathtaking, but 
there was still more to come. Every now and then he would pose amid the flames 
with his wings outstretched and his head turned to one side, looking exactly 
like the traditional picture of the phoenix. (Maurice Burton, Phoenix Reborn 
[London: Hutchinson 1959])

If no one else mentions this you might like to forward it to the DML.

David Lambert