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Thursday, December 29, 2016

The Fifth Day of Christmas


Today's the fifth day of the 2016-2017 Christmas season. It is a day when according to a song (The Twelve Days of Christmas), that someone's true love gave to them five golden rings, four calling birds, as well as three french hens, and a partridge in a pear tree. The Christmas ornament seen in the photograph atop this entry is representative of today's gift that a true love gave to someone near and dear to him/her. And it's the gift I plan to bring it to a married couple that live not too far from me at some time today. I hope they will enjoy this bird-themed ornament as much as I do, but then, I'm someone who deeply appreciates birds, as evidenced by my posts here on Blogger, as well as by my entries on tumblr, Facebook, hometalk and Pinterest.

As I mentioned in yesterday's Blogger posting, John R. Henderson, has studied the meaning behind the lyrics to the twelve days song, and has posted his findings on a web-page which he has titled the 12 Birds of Christmas. Here's what Henderson, who associates pheasants with the fifth day of Christmas points out re this bird type and the giving of five golden rings on this fifth day of Christmas:

"They may not sound bird-like to you, but these are ring-necked pheasants. Not native to Europe, pheasants had been introduced there during Roman times and were quite common throughout Europe before the rise of Christianity. Pheasants were symbols of the element of Fire and sensuous sexuality. The number Five also represents sensuality and magic. Ever wonder why there is so much emphasis, rhythmically, to this verse?"

Mr. Henderson's theory has certainly given me something to keep in mind the next time I happen to see a pheasant. My encounters with this bird type have been minimal, the last time I saw a pheasant was this past spring.

He can be seen in the picture directly below.


The pheasant's name is Donald. I took his picture when I met him at The Wild Bird Fund, a bird rehab facility located in the UWS of NYC.  I had gone there to check on the status of Super-Bird, a Northern Flicker that I had helped to recuse; so meeting Donald was a pleasant surprise! Up until that time, my only encounters with pheasants had been placing figurines (that had been rendered to look like this bird type), within my indoor succulent garden. Images of my pheasant-themed figurines hanging out there can be seen below.



In the photo directly above, my pheasant-themed figurines are surrounded by an array of figurines, including ones made from parts of Christmas trees. These are the pigs seen at the bottom of the image in both the right and left and corners of the picture, as well as the upper-left of the mirror portion of the image, but this one's obscured by my pencil cactus.

Most of the other figurines in this picture are from More & More Antiques (an exquisite shop located on Manhattan's UWS), that is now selling my fauna-flora-insect-themed postcards. Steve Mohr, the sole proprietor of this shop is enthusiastic about my collection and at his suggestion, I may offer my cards in boxed-sets in the coming year. Therefore, I've already created cards featuring thumb-nails of each of my postcards, which can be seen in the following pictures.





Steve is currently carrying each type of my postcards, and each type of them have also been given to the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum (at their request) on a consignment basis. Moreover, the gift shop at The Raptor Trust is currently carrying my fauna-themed postcards. Meanwhile, all of these postcards can also be viewed within a prior post here on Blogger as well as within a store-front page on my web-site, patriciayoungquist.com.

Every image within my postcard collection is from the iBook and ePub version of Cam's book, Words In Our Beak, Volume One.



All of these postcards, as well as the book, Words In Our Beak, Volume One, make great gifts to offer to friends and family on this fifth day of Christma; as well as during these remaining twelve days of Christmas; or the remaining days of Chanukah; or the remaining days of Kwanzaa!

ADDENDUM FALL 2018: 

The non-hardcover version (or versions)  of Volume One within the Words In Our Beak book series that are mentioned in this entry may only remain available for a limited time, but hardcover versions of Volume One, Two and Three can now be found wherever books are sold. Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.

This is a photo of my three volume book series, "Words In Our Beak." Information re the books is another one of my blog  posts @ https://www.thelastleafgardener.com/2018/10/one-sheet-book-series-info.html
MY BOOK SERIES


Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.

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