Ancient Egyptian bestiary: Birds
Swallows
Sparrows
Doves
Hoopoes
Kingfishers
Plovers and lapwings
Cuckoos
Chats
Partridges
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Birds
The swallow
Swallow
Source: 'Ancient Egypt', Time-Life Books
Excerpt
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The swallow was venerated in the region of Thebes. It was one of the birds the dead wished to be turned into (together with herons and hawks).
The Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, saith:- I am a swallow, [I am] a swallow.
From the Book of Ani
According to Plutarch Isis flew around the pillar enclosing the coffin of Osiris in the shape of a swallow.
Isis nursed the child by giving it her finger to suck instead of her breast, and in the night she would burn away the mortal portions of its body. She herself would turn into a swallow and flit about the pillar with a wailing lament, until the queen who had been watching, when she saw her babe on fire, gave forth a loud cry and thus deprived it of immortality.
Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 16
One of four Demotic texts written on a pot, a literary letter, featured an allegorical swallow and its fruitless revenge against the sea:
A letter from the servant Awskj, great of the land of Arabia, before Pharaoh Psamtik Neferpre.
//// [the] great of the land [of Arabia (?)] (and ?) the great ones of my lord. May he (i.e. the pharaoh) celebrate a million sed-festivals! Could Pharaoh, my lord, have said: "I shall cut the land of Arabia into pieces"? May Pharaoh, my lord, listen to the tale which happened to [the] swallow when she gave birth by the sea. Whenever she got ready to leave in order to search food for the belly (?) of her young, she spoke to the sea: "Look after my young until I return!" And it happened that this was her daily habit.
One day it happened that she got ready to leave in order to search for food for the belly of her young, and she spoke to the sea: "Look after my young ones until I return according to my daily wont!"
Then it happened that the sea rose in a rage. It swept away the young of the swallow. Then it happened that the swallow returned. Her beak was full, her eye was wide open. Her heart was glad.
She did not find her young. She said to the sea: "Return [my] children with whom I have entrusted you. If you do not return my children with whom I have entrusted you, I shall empty you today. I shall carry you away. I shall bail you out down to the bottom (?). I shall carry you to the sand of the shore and I shall carry the sand of the shore to you."
This became the swallows daily habit. [///] happened to the swallow, by her going, by her pouring (the sand) into the sea, by her filling (her) beak with seawater, by her pouring it onto the sand of the shore. This was now the wont of the swallow.
Thereafter Pharaoh, my great lord, has said: "When the swallow bails out the sea I shall /// cut to pieces the land of Arabia."
Written [by ////]
Some songbirds were less popular than the swallow and a few were considered outright pests, the ubiquitous house sparrow among them. Its hieroglyph,  , was used as a determinative in words denoting "badness".
Doves, according to J.Bodsworth a Turtle dove on the left and a Rock dove on the right
Picture contrasts have been enhanced for better viewing
Source: Jon Bodsworth
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Doves were proverbial for their role as prey. Ramses III is described in a Medinet Habu inscription:
He rages like the hawk among the birdlets and the doves
J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Four, § 106
People also consumed them, as they did with most birds. According to the Harris Papyrus the oblations Ramses III gave to the temple at Karnak included 6510 doves.
In the morning the bird noises, among which the cooing of doves was especially insistent, accompanied the waking of people which to a romantic person in love might sound as if the birds were talking to them:
The voice of the dove is calling,
It says: "It's dayl Where are you?"
O bird, stop scolding me!
I found my brother on his bed,
My heart was overjoyed;
Each said: "I shall not leave you,
My hand is in your hand;
You and I shall wander
In all the places fair."
Love poem from Papyrus Harris 500
M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. 2, pp. 190f
Hoopoe in acacia tree
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This beautiful migratory bird can be found all year long in Egypt. It nests in burrows and hollow trees. Young hoopoes were captured and grown as pets.
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Kingfisher
Relief from Kaemnofret's chapel, 5th dynasty
W. S. Smith, Country Life in Ancient Egypt, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, plate 8
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Two species of kingfishers live along the lower Nile.The Dwarf kingfisher only hibernates in Egypt, unlike the perennial Lesser pied kingfisher which is bigger, reaching about 25 cm. Both species catch fish by hovering above the water and suddenly diving, catching their prey in their beaks.
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