Birds And Imagination

Mr Daeng showed us this book while we were still staying at his guesthouse at Doi Inthanon. He told us that a Japanese birder recently gave it to him. The title says 野鳥おもしろ図鑑 meaning something like 'funny bird encyclopedia', and it really is! I actually liked it since the cover page, with those square-bodied birds under the title. They are Eastern Great Egret, Japanese Grosbeak, Eurasian Tree Sparrow and Japanese Green Pheasant.

Inside containing colourful illustrations of all species of birds that can be found in Japan. What makes it outstanding is the playful style of drawing combining with jokes about each species of birds. I kept laughing as I go though each page, finding Japanese humour about birds and how to identify them. My favourite ones would be the albatrosses plate, where the real albatrosses are all riding on the albatross planes!, the woodpeckers plate where each species literally wearing red caps and the Black Woodpecker or Kuma-gera, meaning bear-woodpecker, is having four feet with two ears like the real bear!, and the last one, the Citrine Wagtail where the bird also literally has a head of lemon, and even scarier when the head was cut for juice! I think I'll sure be looking for this funny book when I get back to Japan. It's such a wonderful piece of art to be in the collection. Japanese people are sure good at this kind of work!