The Gabbling Wuggthea

The Gabbling Wuggthea

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge from @maniculum (thanks again for posting these challenges!)

Pencil sketch, then lines in Sailor fude nib fountain pen, using Diamine Sepia ink.

Thought process under the cut…

"Rabanus says of the Wuggthea: ‘The Wuggthea gets its name from its talkativeness; not, as some would have it, because Wuggtheas fly in groups; clearly, they are named for the cry they give. It is a most talkative species of bird and makes an irritating noise, and can signify either the empty prattle of philosophers or the harmful wordiness of heretics.’

More can be said of the nature of the Wuggthea. The Wuggthea lives in the woods and flies chattering from one tree to another, as a talkative man ceaselessly tells others about his neighbours, even the shameful things he knows about them. When the Wuggthea sees someone pass, it chatters, and if it finds anyone hiding from the world, it does the same, just as a talkative man slanders not only worldly men but also those hidden whom a religious house conceals. A Wuggthea, captured and finally secured, is shut away on its own to learn to speak words clearly. Sometimes it happens that a Wuggthea, held in confinement, escapes; then the bird, which was formerly talkative, makes even more noise after its escape."

I'll be honest, I like the sound of this bird (probably a lot more than the author, from the sounds of it!).

We don't get a lot of description of the appearance of this bird, but I imagine it would be fairly small (since it flocks together), and fairly plain (as a fan of birds, 'plain' is relative, but I imagine if there was much in the way of distinguishing features they would have been mentioned.

I knew I wanted to draw a flock of these birds, ideally being as loud and obnoxious as possible. Then I had the thought of them bothering a traveller (hence the excuse for some more medieval-style oak trees). Then I thought about Disney Princesses, and Sleeping Beauty (with her entirely not period-appropriate outfit - as an aside, I found a new interesting website to check out...), being surrounded not by demure and deferential chirping cardinals and bluejays, but by a flock of overly enthusiastic Wuggthea all eager to show off all the great sounds they've discovered (and you just know that if any of these birds did escape from captivity, they absolutely will have learned some swear words along the way... :p

Not deliberately trying to guess the identity of this bird, but I did take a lot of inpiration from one of my favourite common birds that loves to adopt weird and interesting sounds, from radios and birdcall to car alarms (spoiler warning for what I think it might be, but I may have also taken a little inspiration from this post... ;)

Electron microscope video of a needle on a vinyl record.

Another one I’ve never heard of but need to check out now… 🐸

Have you played EXQUISITE BIOME ?

By Caro Asercion

Exquisite Biome is a game about the symbiosis of the natural world. Create an ecosystem, populate it with strange and wondrous animals, and see how they interact with one another.

Fernand Khnopff - Caress of the Sphinx (oil on canvas, 1896)

Sphinx but instead of asking people riddles, it just badly and awkwardly flirts with people instead

Reblog to hug prev poster (they need a hug)

Bat-Eared Fox (Otocyon Megalotis)