#Bird Show

[aloneinthedark-eagle]

Our lesson is Music 🎸🎶🦜

[buffetlicious]

The Sky Amphitheatre is packed full house even before the 12.30pm show commence with many audiences left standing at the back. The Wings of the World featured popular birds showcasing their natural talents, breathtaking plumage and sharp-as-claws IQ. I particularly enjoyed the pair of parrots imitating rooster crowing, hand phone ringing and singing the happy birthday song.

Everyone is excited when the staffs release colourful macaws and pelican to fly around the amphitheatre. But the highlight of the show must be when they let out flocks of Pelican, Flamingo and multi-coloured Macaws onto the stage. At the end of the show, audiences can queue to have their photographs taken with the birds which attracted long queue.

The next show starts at 2.30pm so I have slightly more than an hour to explore but I was a little tired out from all the walking under the sun so I popped into one of the air conditioned area to chill out. The Predators on Wings presentation stars what else but these majestic big birds of prey at the top of the food chain. You get to check out the white-bellied sea eagle which I can sometime spots flying in our Singapore sky or hear their call. Also on show are owls, vultures and this dark brown and white American Bald Eagle.

The 20 minutes show ended quickly and it is time to make the way to the shuttle station to board the tram back to the entrance as our company’s bus is waiting to ferry us back home. The new bird park is not only bigger than the previous one plus they do away with many of the small cages and replaced them with these huge walk in aviaries grouped by geographical locations. The aviaries are styled and landscaped to look like the birds’ natural habitat. Overall, this trip had not only been enjoyable but informative where we learn to coexist with the animals rather than hunt them to extinction.

[spinus-pinus]

Marabou Stork Leptoptilos crumenifer

3/2/2022 Disney's Animal Kingdom

[radiophd]

bird show -- field on water

[z13lovebot]

Go fish

[bluegiragi]

wing thing

early access + nsfw on patreon monster!AU masterpost

[stromblessed]

Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows

In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.

If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.

So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.

I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?

However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.

Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)

And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.

Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.

It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.

Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?

While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:

She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.

You see where I'm going with this.

When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:

And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD

When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.

MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS

No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.

And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:

Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!

The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.

And, uh

Yeah.

I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.

But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.

Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:

But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.

There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.

After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:

"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.

Kind of like another bird in this show:

[helicopter-stan]

percy, annabeth, and grover after the SoM quest

original image below!

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[wasabi-gumdrop]

Kabru has a secret admirer in the castle!

[cat-cosplay]

Name that Bird...

*ekekek ekek*

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[bee-sidebranch]

get messengerd

reblog to totally messenger prev

[jtt-033-1613]

[radiophd]

bird show -- green vines

[faiell]

the vanishing cabinet