various sorts of bird-brain

[freckles_and_doubt]

One of my students has insisted on writing her vampire essay on Queen of the Dammed. This is clearly about repression on a scale I have hitherto failed to associate with Anne Rice.

Amusing student errors such as the above are somewhat necessary this afternoon, since I'm menstrual, sore and grumpy as hell, and the continual stream of more than usually lost and hopeless students is irritating me beyond belief. I shall console myself with random photography. There's an Egyptian goose sitting on a chimney on the roof opposite my window, looking somewhat morose in the rain. Every now and then it has itself an enormous conniption about somethingorother, and flaps around honking. Then it goes back to pretending it's sort of weathervane silhouette without the actual vane part.



It's always fascinated me that birds stand on one leg when they're contented. Do you think they like to keep one foot warm, or indicate their basic subliminal trust that no-one's going to sneak up and push them over?

Comments

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

Bearing in mind the grey skies & the fact that you're in winter now - I reckon it's to keep the other foot warm. You ever hear the explanation of how birds can stand on ice & not freeze their feet off?

Of course, being Egyptian, goose or no, it may just be trying to show how incredibly well-balanced it is. ;)

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Alternatively, on the Robert Heinlein side-of-a-barn principle, it's a one-legged Egyptian goose.