Another bird! Kind of speaks for itself, let's get to it.
Anyone unsure about what these posts are should check https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting.
If you want to see the entry these artists are working from, it's here:
As a reminder, all previous entries in this series can be found at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting .
Rabanus says of the Wuggth
And if you want to participate in the next week's bestiaryposting, that entry is here:
As a reminder, all previous entries in this series can be found at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting .
The Ghraggal is named for
Now, art:
@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has drawn a very naturalistic bird -- I would completely believe this was a real bird if you told me it was. The linked post explains that it has elements of both mockingbird & frogmouth, and why. I enjoy the neck & beak situation here: this is a certified Loud Bird.
@coolest-capybara (link to post here) made the delightful decision to include our bestiary author in this image, noting the entry's apparent antipathy to noisy birds and gossipy men. That's the author in the window, suffering from the noise outside. (I also like the Stylized Tree.) For more about the inspiration and art references, see the linked post.
@cheapsweets (link to post here) has also included someone being annoyed by the noisy birds (and alt text, thank you). I really enjoy the contrast between the Disney-princess aesthetic and the birds actually being quite annoying -- also the photobombing Wuggthea in the foreground. For more on inspiration and thought process, please see the linked post.
@pomrania (link to post here) took inspiration from the long-standing linguistics in-joke of the "wug". (Random personal fact: I have a shirt that I got free from the Linguistics department during my masters' degree that reads "Wugs Need Hugs".) I love everything about this -- the usage of IPA here is particularly clever I think. For anyone who doesn't know about the wug, it is explained in the linked post.
@wendievergreen (link to post here) has given us a tree full of colorful, dramatic, presumably quite noisy birds. I really like the coloring choice here, especially knowing the reason behind it as mentioned in the linked post. Also yeah these guys look like they could make a racket. (And thank you for including alt text.)
Aberdeen Bestiary time!
... hm. Well fuck you too, unknown biblioclast.
Ashmole Bestiary time!
That is a heck of a fancy border, and a reasonably nice-looking songbird. This bird is the jay, which is indeed a noisy one, so good job there.
Fellow USAmericans may be thinking of this guy:
But of course these birds are native to North America and would be unknown to our bestiary author. They are actually writing about this guy:
I have never met a Eurasian jay, but given that its genus name is Garrulus, and the Wikipedia page I got this image from describes jays as "usually colorful and noisy," I have no doubt that it is as the bestiary author says.
My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge from @maniculum (thanks again for posting these challenges!)
Pencil sketch, then lines in Sailor fude nib fountain pen, using Diamine Sepia ink.
Thought process under the cut…
"Rabanus says of the Wuggthea: ‘The Wuggthea gets its name from its talkativeness; not, as some would have it, because Wuggtheas fly in groups; clearly, they are named for the cry they give. It is a most talkative species of bird and makes an irritating noise, and can signify either the empty prattle of philosophers or the harmful wordiness of heretics.’
More can be said of the nature of the Wuggthea. The Wuggthea lives in the woods and flies chattering from one tree to another, as a talkative man ceaselessly tells others about his neighbours, even the shameful things he knows about them. When the Wuggthea sees someone pass, it chatters, and if it finds anyone hiding from the world, it does the same, just as a talkative man slanders not only worldly men but also those hidden whom a religious house conceals. A Wuggthea, captured and finally secured, is shut away on its own to learn to speak words clearly. Sometimes it happens that a Wuggthea, held in confinement, escapes; then the bird, which was formerly talkative, makes even more noise after its escape."
I'll be honest, I like the sound of this bird (probably a lot more than the author, from the sounds of it!).
We don't get a lot of description of the appearance of this bird, but I imagine it would be fairly small (since it flocks together), and fairly plain (as a fan of birds, 'plain' is relative, but I imagine if there was much in the way of distinguishing features they would have been mentioned.
I knew I wanted to draw a flock of these birds, ideally being as loud and obnoxious as possible. Then I had the thought of them bothering a traveller (hence the excuse for some more medieval-style oak trees). Then I thought about Disney Princesses, and Sleeping Beauty (with her entirely not period-appropriate outfit - as an aside, I found a new interesting website to check out...), being surrounded not by demure and deferential chirping cardinals and bluejays, but by a flock of overly enthusiastic Wuggthea all eager to show off all the great sounds they've discovered (and you just know that if any of these birds did escape from captivity, they absolutely will have learned some swear words along the way... :p
Not deliberately trying to guess the identity of this bird, but I did take a lot of inpiration from one of my favourite common birds that loves to adopt weird and interesting sounds, from radios and birdcall to car alarms (spoiler warning for what I think it might be, but I may have also taken a little inspiration from this post... ;)
For this week's Bestiary Posting, there wasn't much to go off of for the Wuggthea. It's a bird, it lives in forests in groups, and it loves, loves, loves to chat. It also makes even more noise if you capture it and it escapes, which I think is wonderful, because it means that in order to know this, someone had to capture this bird and it got out, and then instead of flying away it decided to just yell at it's captor, presumably forever. I can admire a bird that can hold a grudge.
I decided that the most talkative bird I know is the mockingbird, so decided to base my wuggthea off of that. They also, I just learned, can recognize humans, like crows, so if you're mean to them, they might just take it out on you like the wuggthea. Of course the wuggthea is even more talkative than your average mockingbird, and so he needs a much, much bigger mouth and throat, like frogmouth-like in size, so all your neighbors in a 5 mile radius knows when he's badmouthing you to his wuggthea friends.
I don't know enough about birds' vocal anatomy to know if a bigger throat equals a bigger or more sustained sound - I would guess not - but it really added to the ridiculousness of the screaming maw, so I kept it.
This week in the Maniculum Bestiaryposting Challenge, we learn about the Wuggthea:
"Rabanus says of the Wuggthea: ‘The Wuggthea gets its name from its talkativeness; not, as some would have it, because Wuggtheas fly in groups; clearly, they are named for the cry they give. It is a most talkative species of bird and makes an irritating noise, and can signify either the empty prattle of philosophers or the harmful wordiness of heretics.’ More can be said of the nature of the Wuggthea. The Wuggthea lives in the woods and flies chattering from one tree to another, as a talkative man ceaselessly tells others about his neighbours, even the shameful things he knows about them. When the Wuggthea sees someone pass, it chatters, and if it finds anyone hiding from the world, it does the same, just as a talkative man slanders not only worldly men but also those hidden whom a religious house conceals. A Wuggthea, captured and finally secured, is shut away on its own to learn to speak words clearly. Sometimes it happens that a Wuggthea, held in confinement, escapes; then the bird, which was formerly talkative, makes even more noise after its escape."
I feel like this entry tells us a lot more about the author and his bestie Rabanus than about the bird itself. Beset on all sides by gossipy men and loud birds, he suffers, and wants us to know all about it. A little portrait of our beleaguered protagonist seemed only fitting.
Since the Wuggthea is described as a gregarious, talkative and noisy bird, I based the design on crested cockatoos. And of course, I couldn't resist drawing some equally noisy gossip boys, in outfits inspired by the Codex Manesse.
I love making up weird birds for this game of bestiary telephone. (Design partially inspired by the very aptly-named Magnificent Frigatebird, which I only just found out about when looking for inspiration. Birds are already so weird.)
The Wuggthea
The Wuggthea, also called the Large-Throated Woodpecker or the Chatterbox Woodpecker, is a species of bird that migrates from eastern Europe in the summer to southern Asia and parts of Africa in the winter.
Female and male Wuggthea have vastly different appearances. Females are slightly smaller, and their feathers are a mottled pale grey across their entire bodies, and they have light grey beaks. Males, on the other hand, have solid grey or black feathers with white shoulders and underbelly. The undersides of their wings and tail are bright red, as is the tuft of feathers on the back of their head and a spot on their forehead, the tip of their black beak, and their featherless throat sac.
Wuggthea eat mainly invertebrates. Though they are often called woodpeckers, and do drill holes in trees, they are just as likely to search for their prey in the soil, or to seek out infested corpses and eat the insects that gather around them. Occasionally a Wuggthea will also eat small vertebrate animals, particularly frogs.
A Wuggthea is capable of making a wide variety of noises. Their most common vocalisations are "chattering" or "chuckling" sounds, which are used for communication. There is also a range of "shrieking" or "screaming" sounds, which are used as alarm calls, and a "cackling" noise which signals the discovery of a rotting log or corpse rich with invertebrates. Males can also use their throat pouches to amplify their "croaking" or "thumping" calls, which are used to vie for mates—those with more impressive calls and more prominent throat sacs are more likely to win partners.
Wuggthea can also make some imitations of sounds they hear, though they are not as clear as those of a raven or parrot. There were some attempts in the 12th century to domesticate Wuggthea, train them to mimic particular human speech sounds, and present them as exotic pets in parts of Europe where they were not native, but their capability for inflicting damage on wooden buildings and producing all manner of unappealing, loud noises when confined made these ventures short-lived.
As a reminder, all previous entries in this series can be found at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting .
Rabanus says of the Wuggthea: ‘The Wuggthea gets its name from its talkativeness; not, as some would have it, because Wuggtheas fly in groups; clearly, they are named for the cry they give. It is a most talkative species of bird and makes an irritating noise, and can signify either the empty prattle of philosophers or the harmful wordiness of heretics.' More can be said of the nature of the Wuggthea. The Wuggthea lives in the woods and flies chattering from one tree to another, as a talkative man ceaselessly tells others about his neighbours, even the shameful things he knows about them. When the Wuggthea sees someone pass, it chatters, and if it finds anyone hiding from the world, it does the same, just as a talkative man slanders not only worldly men but also those hidden whom a religious house conceals. A Wuggthea, captured and finally secured, is shut away on its own to learn to speak words clearly. Sometimes it happens that a Wuggthea, held in confinement, escapes; then the bird, which was formerly talkative, makes even more noise after its escape.
Remember to tag posts with #Wuggthea so folks can find them.
The shape and general vibe of my wuggthea are inspired by two loud birds, the hyacinth macaw and the American crow. I picked the hyacinth macaw because they have the sassiest poses, and the American crow because they are close family friends. (Yes, all of them. But especially the couple that comes by every day for peanuts.)
My sister suggested that given the medieval definition of 'bird,' a bird that hangs out in groups on trees and yells could be a cicada. I didn't go full bug, but I did borrow my wuggthea's colors from Tacua speciosa.
