Just a thought about the swans-a-swimming. Swans in England have been the considered the property of

Everybody air tickets canada knows the Christmas carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas . Easily the most endless song this side of 99 Bottles of Beer, this old chestnut has simultaneously delighted and horrified holiday celebrants for centuries. Of particular note is the song s emphasis on avifauna. No Christmas carol features birds as prominently as this one. To the birder, this begs the question: what species of birds appear in the Twelve Days of Christmas ?
The origins of this venerable whimsy are, as so many things more than a century old, shrouded in mystery. A popular bit of religious propaganda air tickets canada making the rounds posits that this song is a catechism song written to help young Catholics learn the tenets of their faith. The partridge in a pear tree is said to represent the Christ Himself, and each other gift has a numerological equivalent air tickets canada in Catholic doctrine. The good folk at Snopes.com refute this myth and assert the secular nature of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Still, although we know that this song is old, dating air tickets canada back to the 17th century or earlier, it s true origin is unclear. Perhaps a French love ballad or maybe an English drinking song, this carol makes one thing perfectly clear: birds make festive Christmas gifts!
The partridge, air tickets canada a member of the pheasant family, has been a traditional game bird in England for centuries. The plump, hen-like bird perched precariously in the pear tree is probably a Grey Partridge ( Perdix perdix air tickets canada ).
Exhaustive inquiry turned up nothing about the distinctive qualities of Gallic galliforms. This gift is no doubt one of fancy domesticated chickens ( Gallus gallus air tickets canada domesticus ) from France, cooked perhaps in the Parisian style.
One usually interprets calling bird to mean song bird. This could refer to any of the passerines, though most likely a canary or similar caged exotic. However, in this case, a bit of research paid off. It is widely accepted that the original gift was one of four colly birds, not four calling birds. air tickets canada The word colly means black as coal. Thus, the gift on the fourth day could be none other than the Common Blackbird ( Turdus merula ), ubiquitous in the UK. This discovery air tickets canada seems rather unappetizing in light of the realization that these gifts are meant to be enjoyed in a gustatory fashion. Suddenly, that bit about four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie seems way too literal for my modern tastes.
This is another case where a literal reading of the verse obscures its true meaning. Why would the benefactor in this ballad vacillate from birds to jewelry to birds again? Another interpretation of this line introduces consistency to the offerings. The golden rings are actually ring-necked birds. Common (Ring-necked) Pheasants ( Phasianus colchicus ) were introduced to England from China and other parts of Asia in medieval times. Like so many of the birds of that era, pheasants were yet another source of sustenance.
This line does not require inference or imagination to understand. The geese in question are probably domesticated, so we can cover our bets with the Greylag Goose ( Anser anser ), the ancestor of most domesticated geese. The Greylag Goose is a large, bulky native of the United Kingdom.
At this point, the gifts seem to turn from edible to ornamental, since I m not sure that any generation has come up with a decent recipe for swan. The graceful, white waterbirds meant to thrill the recipient of this yule bounty is probably none other than the bane of the Chesapeake watershed, the Mute Swan ( Cygnus olor ). This super-competitor, the bird that launched the Migratory Bird Treaty Reform Act of 2004 , is a Eurasian endemic and as lovely a swimmer as one is likely to find.
The rest of the song, with its lords-a-leaping and maids-a-milking, is inconsequential from an ornithological perspective and irritating from an aesthetic one. Those first seven verses, on the other hand, offer an astonishing insight into the extravagant gifting conventions and ravenous appetite for bird flesh in England during the Baroque era.
In the interest of completeness, we would be remiss if we didn t point out that The Twelve Days Of Christmas  hardly represent the full sum of birds connected to this cherished holiday. In addition to the birds turned up during traditional Christmas air tickets canada Bird Counts , a number of species from two different Christmas Islands have been gifted with improbably festive names
Mike is a leading authority in the field of standardized test preparation , but what he really aspires to be is a naturalist. Besides founding 10,000 Birds and I and the Bird , Mike has also created a number of other entertaining sites and resources, particularly the Nature Blog Network .
[...] Can you name five Christmas carols that mention birds? The first one that sprang to my mind was The Twelve Days of Christmas, in which birds are given as several of the gifts. Mike has done such a thorough job with this song over at 10,000 Birds that I ll just point you to his post rather than say more myself: Birds Of The Twelve Days Of Christmas. [...]
Timely my daughters I were singing The Twelve Days of Christmas this evening. The laying geese probably weren t cooked, since they were laying. Maybe the eggs were served with the swan. I don t know much about swan cooking, but one was featured in the last episode of The Tudors this season, the one with the demise of Ann while Henry was eating said swan. However, we are all vegetarians in this house and so only faux-fowl are eaten here.
[...] No comments yet Recently, I had a fun chat with Steve Moore of Birdwatch Radio about those delightful birds of the Twelve Days of Christmas as part of a segment that also features interviews with Geoff LeBaron about the Audubon Christmas [...]
That partridge looks a lot like a chukar to me! After reading all of this, I m tempted to think this was a hunting air tickets canada song! By the time you get to the end with the maids a-milking and the Lords a-leaping I think the holiday festivities are in full swing! A very interesting read!
Just a thought about the swans-a-swimming. Swans in England have been the considered the property air tickets canada of the Crown for hundreds of years. The annual event known as Swan Upping was/is the official counting of the royal birds. This event is held when the cygnets are very small and the adult birds are reluctant,or unable air tickets canada due to molting,to fly.
This article states The rest of the song, with its lords-a-leaping and maids-a-milking, is inconsequential from an ornithological perspective air tickets canada and irritating from an aesthetic one. This is not the case. As a child I was told that all the items mentioned are birds with colloquial names. Gold rings are plovers; Lords a leaping are cock pheasants, air tickets canada Drummers drumming are grouse, but I have forgotten the birds refered to as Pipers, Ladies dancing, and Maids a milking. Can anyone help me here?
Gold rings are pheasants; Lords a leaping are herons(which take flight by leaping into the air), Drummers air tickets canada drumming are grouse (which make a drumming sound on their lek (breeding grounds), Pipers are plovers (also called piping plovers), Ladies dancing are cormorants (which have a distinct bobbing stance), and Maids a milking are white egrets (sometimes called cattle egrets).
I m so glad I found this site! I think all the gifts refer to birds also, although I have no solid evidence. I really like WhiteCedar s explanation. Seems logical to me. Why would the first seven gifts be birds and then suddenly jump to other random items? And the names of the last five gifts suggest birds to my mind. I was thinking of sand pipers and woodpeckers, but then, I m not a huge bird person or an historian . So interesting! Thanks all, for posting!
your research is awesome and is very close to what I discovered. I researched this earlier air tickets canada this year and was just brushing up on my blog making sure I had everything I needed for my family christmas program. you stopped at day 7 but I found out that it is ALL birds. or certainly could be. 10 Lord s a leaping there is a Lord God Bird, a woodpecker and it leaps. In fact many birds leap. 8 maids a milking. the cuckoo bird is called a maid and they milk their young. air tickets canada 9 ladies dancing air tickets canada There is a Lady roco bird and it could just be referring to female birds dancing. birds dance and leap. 11 pipers there are sand pipers. 12 drummers drumming many birds drum in fact the ruffled grouse (PA) is called a partridge or drummer. thought you might like to know. no proof of if that is what the author of the song intended but hey, it works.
Love this post! Merry Christmas and happy holidays to avian watching enthusiasts the world over. It is all too easy to overindulge during the holidays so go birding instead of eating that extra mint even if it does happen to be thinner than a wafer. If not, you might need to go birding with a bucket
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, 10,000 Birds! I love this post. I knew a little bit of the song s history, but this post and the ensuing commentary educated me beyond my rudimentary understanding. Thanks for all you do, and for your consistently fantastic writings, images and subject choices. Wishing you all a beautiful start to 2012!
YEAH! Thanks for colly and gold ring clarification! air tickets canada Looking forward to massacring poem (not birds) at reading. Sure they ate swans back in Tudor times I seem to remember they d haul them onto the table in virtual reality, with skin/head/feathers intact and food enclosed which I d assume would be minced swan. Obviously only eaten (or served like this)by those with lashings of loot namely kings. Think of swams protected on Thames .
Can anyone tell me a carol similar to the 12 days of Christmas, sung on 12th Night counts down from 12 to 1, and has a happy aged bird in the title but it is not a partridge? (this is just a quiz clue I cannot get teh answer for!)