The Crow And Other Birds

I am sure I am going to miss the crows I used to go see at Hyde Park. I loved them so much I am using their picture as my profile picture. There are no crows in South America and I wonder why, as they are present in every other part of the world. We even got through colonization the nasty European sparrow, but not a single crow.

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The other day we were discussing where in Brazil Goncalves Dias was from. We didn't have a computer nearby so we made our bets and it happened of course that I won. And I won because of the tree in his most famous poem:

Minha terra tem palmeiras

Onde canta o sabia'

As aves que aqui gorjeiam

Nao gorjeiam como la'

I said he was from the Northeast of Brazil, of course, because it's only there that we have palm trees. We don't have palm trees in Sao Paulo, nor in Rio de Janeiro, nor in Minas Gerais.

The sabia' was not so popular in my hometown, but I used to see one or another in a cage in the countryside, in that time that people still kept singing birds in cages - I don't think they do that anymore, this would be utterly politically incorrect. But the bem-te-vi I remember very well, they are still there living in urban environments like the nasty sparrows, every time I go home I hear the bem-te-vi's. When I left Belo Horizonte I composed the following joke:

Minha terra tem uns arbustos

Onde canta o bem-te-vi

As aves que la gorjeiam

Nao gorjeiam como aqui