Thursday, March 20, 2008

Bird food for hot dogs

I have the new igoogle gadget Bird of the Day, and today is a particularly appropriate species based on the old Swedish saying:
"Upupa epops kalops, kan man propsa i en mops".
This translates to Upupa epops (= the latin name of the bird) meat stew, you can push into a pug. I know in English it makes no sense at all, but in Swedish it is funny! I don't remember who said it, but I remember my Dad saying it many times to us.
Here is the bird, called Hoopoe in English. It is rare in Sweden, and I have only seen it in France and Africa. The latin name comes from its sound - it really sounds like hoo-poe/Huupupa.

Update: Just found this interesting tidbit of information:
"If anybody smears himself with the blood of this bird on his way to bed, he will have nightmares about suffocating devils." [Cambridge bestiary, 12c.] link

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