More national birds for August DAB-Day

This month the theme for Draw-a-Bird Day is national birds. We’ve had that theme before, but hey, there are lots of nations.

As it turns out, there may not be enough birds! What I’m getting at is that sometimes several nations choose the same bird.

In most cases, our artists picked a country and then drew the bird, maybe not even knowing other countries also claimed that bird. In my case, I picked a bird and then found out it doesn’t even represent a country. My husband pointed out that Puerto Rico is not a country.

Another surprise is that Wikipedia’s list of national birds is not comprehensive. It does not include Moldova, Armenia, Malawi, or South Sudan, to name the ones my research assistant (read “self”) discovered.

Jim told me that this bird is among the rarest cranes in the world, and that in some parts of its range it is known as a symbol of luck, longevity, and fidelity. He said that when he was searching for a photograph to paint, almost all of the pictures he found showed them in pairs and in snowy fields. It is also called the Manchurian crane.

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