Oleg Zabluda's blog
Sunday, January 08, 2012
 
If there is one thing I hate more then scientific imprecision in poetry, it's ornithological imprecision in Japanese...
If there is one thing I hate more then scientific imprecision in poetry, it's ornithological imprecision in Japanese art. For example, what the hell is this bird?

http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/singleObject.cfm?ObjectNumber=S2003.8.2072

It most closely resembles adult The Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) "Обыкновенная кваква" або "Квак звичайний". But Night heron does not have yellow beak. It's beak is black. Juvenile Night Heron has yellow beak, but it looks nothing like an adult otherwise and nothing like the bird in the picture. Several herons have yellow beaks (Great Blue, Little Blue, Great White, Bittern, etc... but none of those have white breast and black cap and yellow legs, like on the picture. And, finally, only Green Heron  (Butorides virescens) "Американская зелёная кваква") has yellow wings, but it also has red breast, not white. So either the painter Ohara Koson was daltonic and could not tell black from white, or he discovered a new bird I gonna call "Great Little Blue-Green Night Heron" or "Большая Малая Ночная Сине-Зелёная кваква Обыкновенная".

References (where beak color and feet color are seen):

Black-crowned Night Heron
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Jz42I6Vdv1awjus_Sj4vBtMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0

Green Heron:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/AmNNjOkskLfCgbyiIzMgUdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0

Great Blue Heron
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/VkyfyjAMJ5VZ3CMIgZf4idMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0

Great White heron
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/V9ouY0R6uihqWcGa__ohPtMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0

Snowy Egret
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/qIpQcof21y_HQZEPYcHSRdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0
http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/singleObject.cfm?ObjectNumber=S2003.8.2072

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