This Hiroshige Print hangs in my local museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts. At first I had trouble understanding the caption, since it said: Camellia and Paddy bird and Korean Nightingale. The Nightingale is looking to the right, and the "Paddy bird" is looking to the left. But the Paddy bird is another name for the breed my friends belong to, the Java Sparrow, Rice Bird or Rice Finch. Its Latin name is the Padda Oryzavora, or Paddy rice eater. My friends would not be welcome in a country where rice was a major crop. They are right now looking as elegant as the bird in this engraving, with equally distinct, clean colors. They are preening and grooming each other, sitting on their perch.
The print is in a tradition dating to early Chinese painting, birds with flowers. Perhaps I should get my boys a Camellia. I wonder if they'd eat it. A hibiscus would be more locavorian. I give them rice whenever I eat it, and they usually have some of it.
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