Birds in culture

Detail of two falconers from the Medieval De arte venandi cum avibus, c. 1240

Birds have appeared in culture for thousands of years. They have been captured or bred as poultry for use as food. Raptors have been used in falconry, often to catch other birds, whether for pleasure or for food. They have been kept as cagebirds for their song, or raised for traditional sports such as cockfighting and pigeon racing.

Birds have been depicted in paintings, sculpture, poetry and prose, music, ballet, and films such as Hitchcock's The Birds. Birds have appeared in mythology and religion from the time of Ancient Egypt, where the sacred ibis was venerated as a symbol of the god Thoth.

Their feathers have been used as adornments, whether for the headdresses of tribal peoples or the hats and boas of fashionable ladies. Today, millions of people enjoy birdwatching, and many put out birdfeeders to attract birds to their houses and gardens. Birds such as canaries and parrots are popular pets.

As food

Poultry is a major source of food, the chicken alone providing 20% of the world's animal protein.

Birds have for at least four thousand years been bred as poultry for use as food. The most important species is the chicken, providing some 20% of the animal protein eaten by the world's human population. However, Ducks, geese, pheasants, guineafowl and turkeys are all significant economically around the world. Less commonly-raised species such as the ostrich are starting to be farmed for their meat, which is low in cholesterol; they have also been kept for their feathers, and for leather from their skin.

Ducks such as mallard, wigeon, shoveler and teal have for centuries been captured by wildfowlers, while pheasants, partridges, grouse, and snipe are among the terrestrial birds that are hunted for sport.

For enjoyment

Raptors from eagles to small falcons have for centuries been used in falconry, often to catch other birds, whether for pleasure or for food.

Cockfighting, banned in many countries in the twentieth century on grounds of cruelty, is an ancient spectator sport. It formed part of the culture of the ancient Indians, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans. It continues to be practised in South America and across South and Southeast Asia, often combined with betting on the result. It is practised in religious ceremonies in Hindu temples in Bali.

Cagebirds such as the domestic canary are kept for their song, while parrots are kept as colourful pets.

Birdwatching has since the nineteenth century become a major leisure activity. The British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, founded in 1889, has grown to have over a million members; it has been followed by similar societies in other countries.

Many people put out birdfeeders to attract birds to their gardens or windowsills.

In the arts

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Woodcut of a heron catching an eel by Thomas Bewick, 1804

Birds have been depicted throughout the arts, including in painting and sculpture, in literature, in music, in theatre, in ballet, and in film.

Birds have been depicted in paintings, sculptures and other art objects from the earliest times, including in cave paintings. John James Audubon's images of birds in his 1827–1838 Birds of America are among the most admired. In modern art, some of the paintings of Joan Miró include "A tangle of lines and small, colored ideograms suggesting birds, allegorical characters, stars, and animals". In modern sculpture, Pablo Picasso's 1932 bronze Coq (Cockerel) is an assemblage of "spiky, elongated forms."

In public statuary, the Magyars's mythical Turul symbolises national power and nobility, and is represented by many statues in Hungary, including the largest bird statue in the world, on a mountain near Tatabánya.

In poetry, the 1177 Persian poem "The Conference of the Birds", the birds of the world assemble under the wisest bird, the hoopoe, to decide who is to be their king. In English poetry, John Keats's 1819 "Ode to a Nightingale" and Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1820 "To a Skylark" are popular classics. Bird poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins include "Sea and Skylark" and "The Windhover". Ted Hughes's 1970 collection of poems about a bird character, "Crow", is considered one of his most important works.

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Ballerina in The Firebird by Léon Bakst, 1910

Birds have appeared in literature from ancient times. Among Aesop's Fables are The Wolf and the Crane and The Fox and the Stork. Thomas Bewick's 1797–1804 A History of British Birds brought affordable illustrations to the public for the first time, and the book formed in effect the first field guide to birds. Beatrix Potter's 1908 The Tale of Jemima Puddle-duck created a popular bird character.

In music, birdsong has influenced composers and musicians in several ways: they can be inspired by birdsong; they can intentionally imitate bird song in a composition, as Vivaldi and Beethoven did, along with many later composers; they can incorporate recordings of birds into their works, as Ottorino Respighi first did; or like Beatrice Harrison and David Rothenberg, they can duet with birds.

In theatre, Aristophanes's 414 BC comedy The Birds (Greek: Ὄρνιθες Ornithes) is an acclaimed fantasy with effective mimicry of birds. The play's chorus consists of characters playing the partridge, francolin, mallard, kingfisher, sparrow, owl, jay, turtledove, crested lark, reed warbler, wheatear, pigeon, merlin, sparrowhawk, ringdove, cuckoo, stock dove, firecrest, rail, kestrel, dabchick, waxwing, vulture, woodpecker. There are also three bird messengers, some bird dancers, a hoopoe, a raven piper and a nightingale flute player in the cast, while several Athenians are compared to specific birds.

In ballet, Tchaikovsky's classical 1895 Swan Lake and Igor Stravinsky's 1910 The Firebird have central bird characters.

In film, Alfred Hitchcock's acclaimed 1963 The Birds, loosely based on Daphne du Maurier's story of the same name, tells the tale of sudden attacks on people by violent flocks of birds. Ken Loach's much admired 1969 Kes, based on Barry Hines's 1968 novel A Kestrel for a Knave, tells the story of a young boy who comes of age by training a kestrel that he has taken from the nest.

In mythology and religion

Ibis-headed Thoth, scribe of the gods. Papyrus of Hunefer, c. 1275 BC

Birds have appeared in mythology and religion from the time of Ancient Egypt, where the sacred ibis was venerated as a symbol of the god Thoth. In Ancient Greece, Athens and Athena, Athens' patron goddess and the goddess of wisdom, had a little owl as her symbol. In India, the peacock is perceived as Mother Earth among Dravidian peoples, while the Mughal and Persian emperors displayed their godlike authority by sitting in a Peacock Throne.

In the cult of Makemake, the Tangata manu birds of Easter Island served as chiefs. In Norse mythology, Hugin and Munin were ravens who whispered news into the ears of the god Odin. In the Etruscan and Roman religions of ancient Italy, priests were involved in augury, interpreting the words of birds while the "auspex" watched their activities to foretell events.

In the Inca and Tiwanaku empires of South America, birds are depicted transgressing the boundaries between the earthly and underground spiritual realms. Indigenous peoples of the central Andes maintain legends of birds passing to and from metaphysical worlds. The mythical chullumpi bird is said to mark the existence of a portal between such worlds, and to transform itself into a llama.

In mythology, birds were sometimes monsters, like the Roc and the Māori's Pouākai, a giant bird capable of snatching humans.

In clothing and fashion

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Bororo men wearing brightly-coloured feathered headdresses

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Painting of the actress Sophie Arnould wearing a feathered hat by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, c. 1770

Elaborate, brightly-coloured headdresses containing feathers are worn by indigenous peoples of the Americas such as the Bororo of the Mato Grosso.

In Western culture, feathers are used in boas, fashion accessories worn like long thin scarves. Formerly, feathers were more widely used in fashion, decorating elaborate hats and other items of ladies' clothing.

To find carcasses

The archaeological and historical records suggest interdependence between humans and vultures for millions of years. Like other animal species, early hominins probably used these birds as beacons signalling the location of meat, in the form of carcasses, in the landscape.

To find honey

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Some peoples in Africa are guided to the nests of wild bees by the greater honeyguide.

The greater honeyguide, a bird in the woodpecker order, guides people in some parts of Africa to the nests of wild bees. A guiding bird attracts a person's attention with wavering, chattering "'tya' notes compounded with peeps or pipes". The guiding bird flies a short distance with a conspicuous bounding, upward flight toward one of the many occupied bees' nests that it knows about in its territory. It then stops and calls again, spreading its tail which is conspicuously marked with white spots. When the native honey-hunter reaches the nest, he incapacitate the adult bees with smoke and open the nest with an axe or machete. When the humans have taken their honey, the honeyguide eats whatever is left.

When the Boran people of East Africa follow a honeyguide, this reduces their search time for honey by approximately two-thirds. Because of this benefit, the Boran use a specific loud whistle, known as the fuulido, when a search for honey is about to begin. The fuulido doubles the encounter rate with honeyguides.

The Bushmen of the Kalahari have a tradition that the honeyguide must be thanked with a gift of honey; if not, it may lead its follower to a lion, bull elephant, or venomous snake as punishment. However, "others maintain that honeycomb spoils the bird, and leave it to find its own bits of comb".

Other uses

Feathers are used to make warm and soft bedding and winter clothing as they have high "loft", trapping a large amount of air for their weight. Feathers were used also for quill pens, for fletching arrows, and to decorate fishing lures.

Bird bones were used by stone age peoples to make awls and other tools. Guano, the droppings of seabirds, rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, was once important as an agricultural fertiliser and is still used in organic farming. The War of the Pacific in 1865 was in part about control of guano sources. Today, the chicken is used as a model organism in biological research.

Birds such as canaries, budgerigars, cockatoos, lovebirds, and parrots are popular pets, whether for their song, their behaviour, their colourful plumage, or their ability to imitate the human voice. Because they can be kept in cages, they are suitable for homes that might be too small or otherwise unsuitable for dogs or cats. In 2013, there were estimated to be 1 million pet birds in Britain, and another million domestic fowls. These estimates were revised down to 0.5 million pet birds and 0.7 million domestic fowls in 2015.

As symbols

One of over 600 swan pubs: the Swan Inn on Swan Lane, Stroud

Eagles in heraldry

Birds have been seen as symbols, and used as such. In heraldry, birds, especially eagles, often appear in coats of arms.

Also symbolically, over 3000 pubs in Britain have birds in their names and painted on their signs; their names include "Bird in Hand", "Bird & Babby", "Drunken Duck", "Eagle & Snake", "Halfmoon & Spread Eagle", "Jackdaw & Rook", "Wheatsheaf & Pigeon", and "White Swan & Cuckoo". Many pubs are named after a single bird, from "Albatross" and "Barn Owl" to "Woodcock", "Jenny Wren" and "Yellow Wagtail". Some familiar names with strong cultural associations are used many times: there are 24 pubs named "Crow's Nest" (nautical), 32 named "Dog & Duck" (wildfowling), 26 named "Eagle & Child" (heraldic), 129 named simply "Eagle", and 102 named "Falcon" (heraldic, or falconry). Especially popular is the mute swan, with 113 pubs named "Black Swan", 162 named "White Swan" and 362 simply called "The Swan".

See also

• Insects in culture