BBC Wildlife 57with them on her hand. The turtle dove is
also mentioned in the Old Testament, a sign
of the coming of spring: “the time of the
singing of birds is come, and the voice of
the turtle is heard in our land....” This is of
course not a reference to an aquatic reptile,
but to the soft ‘tur-tur’ call that gives the
species its name.
Composers of popular songs have
frequently featured the turtle dove,
though that may simply be because
it conveniently rhymes with ‘love’. It
features in songs by Cliff Richard, Annie
Lennox and the great Frank Sinatra, who
sang about “a heartsick turtle dove”.Counting chickens
The next line of The Twelve Days of
Christmas, three French hens, also
refers to a bird intimately linked with
farming: the domestic chicken. This is,ironically, by far the world’s commonest
bird: the total number of chickens alive
at any one time is thought to be roughly
19 billion; more than two for every man,
woman and child on the planet.
Chickens – especially cockerels – feature
in literature from Aesop’s Fables to Animal
Farm, and also in the New Testament, where
Christ tells Peter he will betray him three
times “before the cock crows”. They are so
embedded in our popular culture that, in
2002, Yale University held a conference on
the cultural history of the chicken, “from the
Middle Ages to McNuggets”.
Two other birds in the carol, six geese
a-laying and seven swans a-swimming, have
also been domesticated at various times.
Traditionally, they are the last two lines that
explicitly feature a particular species or group
of birds; but I believe that the other seven
lines also have an avian meaning.Left: goddess of
love Aphrodite is
often depicted
with doves. White
doves are said to
have drawn her
(presumably very
slow) chariot.Above: several
of Aesop’s tales
feature hens
or chickens,
including this
one of the cock
and the fox.Britain; indeed, just 50 years ago it was more
than three times as numerous as the collared
dove. Today, the situation has dramatically
reversed: the collared dove is at least 70 times
as common as its smaller cousin.
Doves have always been a symbol of
fidelity, going back to the Ancient Greeks: the
goddess Aphrodite was traditionally depicted
CHRISTMAS BIRDS