I am a Beijinger, usually like to read folklore related books, but because of my youth, a lot of things in the old Beijing culture, I did not come into contact with much, for example, when I was a child, I heard people say: "What tiger do you pretend not to pull?" I didn't know what it meant, so I went home and asked our grandfather, and my dad said, "This is not a good word, don't learn!" ”
However, he did not tell me what Kind of thing Tiger Bu La (pronounced hùbalǎ) was, so I was particularly curious. When I was in school, I also asked the Chinese teacher, but unfortunately, as a Hunan girl who just graduated from college, she didn't know what this tiger bula was. What exactly is this tiger bu la, which has become a problem that has plagued me for many years.
Until one time I went to the bird market and heard the two grandfathers chatting: What tiger do you raise that does not pull? I looked back and fixed my eyes on a big uncle holding a shelf in his hand, tethering a gray bird, similar in size to Dai Sheng, with sharp claws bent and hooked mouth, looking fierce and evil, it turned out that this was the legendary Tiger Bula.
According to the unreliable dictionary interpretation, "tiger does not pull" also refers to people's attitudes. Pictured is the brown-backed Berausius Schach. Image: J.M.Garg/wikimedia
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" style="text-align: center" > the legendary Hubula</h1>
When I grew up, when I was reading a book about birds, I found that the Tiger Bula that I had seen in those years was originally called Berau. Today our protagonist is a kind of tiger does not pull: the gray tiger does not pull, that is, the gray berlao.
Grey Burrow. Image: Marek Szczepanek /wikimedia
Grey Berbera has a wide distribution range and can be seen in northeast China, Inner Mongolia and parts of Xinjiang.
As the name suggests, the grey berho bird is indeed gray, the gray on the top of the head and back is slightly darker, while the belly is slightly lighter gray, the face is white, a thick and black "eyeliner" is almost drawn to the back of the head, it can see the outstretched wings when it flies, the front is black, there is a white belt in the middle and the end of the flight feather is black, which is a cool color that is fashionable.
Gray Burao with its wings spread. Image: siburhan /inaturalist
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" style="text-align: center" > ruthless butcher bird</h1>
Grey Berau, like other Berau, has an "eagle hook beak" and curved and pointed claws, which are its prey tools, other birds either eat insects or seeds, while Grey Burrow is different, it loves meat, whether it is a small house finch (qiǎo here), a small rat (mouse), a small long worm (snake), a horse snake (stone dragon) and a small toad are its favorites. Of course, Gray Berau also eats bugs, but I don't know if it is stereotype or coincidence, I saw that when it eats bugs, it eats "fierce goods" such as big grasshoppers and big knife mantises, and it is indeed a "bird of prey", even if it eats insects, it will pick a big one.
The meat-loving Berau. Image: nature-pictures.org
Grey Berau generally stands on a higher branch, generally here has a better view, after finding the prey it will take off quickly, swoop down and hold the prey with its sharp claws, and use a sharp hook-like beak to peck at the back of the prey's head to kill it. After killing "large" prey, Berau likes to wear prey on the spikes of the branches, and there is a saying that this may be related to the small size and weakness of the berau, it is difficult to tear the prey with its beak like a real bird of prey, so it uses the branch to fix the prey, and then slowly pecks the flesh off the prey.
Hang the prey on the branches of the ash burrow. Image: Marek Szczepanek /wikimedia
And this habit is quite cruel and ruthless in the eyes of some people, so Berlau also got a nickname of "butcher bird". The mechanical monster in Hyperion is also known as Berlau because it catches people and hangs them on a tree of steel thorns. There are some species of Berau, when preying on poisonous insects, they will poke insects on the branches of the tree and leave them for a period of time to let the toxins in their bodies dissipate before enjoying a good meal.
Bumblebees wrapped in thorny iron by Berau. Image: James K. Lindsey/wikimedia
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" style="text-align: center" > Berau has always been by our side</h1>
Burrow, a bird that has a special character living around us, has long been known and recorded by our ancestors. In the book of poetry, there is a verse called "July Singing Eagle", which is the Berau. The "Song of Dongfei Berau" in the new poem of Yutai has: "Dongfei Berau Xifei Yan, Huanggu Weaver Girl When They Meet", borrowing the migration of Berau and Swallows to express their longing for relatives and friends. The Tang Dynasty poet Jia Dao's "Sending the Way" also has the words "Don't let me be Pengsong, the sun obliquely flying Berau" in it.
As we all know, the idiom "Lao Yan Fen Fei" is from the "Dongfei Bo Lao Song". Image: Shantanu Kuveskar /wikimedia
The ancients were very familiar with birds such as Berau. Among the so many literary works depicting Berau, I think the most interesting is the story in Cao Zhi's "On birds and birds": Yin Jifu listened to the rumors of his wife and killed his son Birch. Later, Yin Jifu went out to pass through the field and saw a bird chirping on a mulberry tree, the call was very sad, he felt that this bird was transformed by his dead son, so he said to it: "Birch, Lauhu? It is my son, who perches in my opinion; it is not my son, and it is not my son, and it is not to live. As a result, the bird did follow the carriage home; Yin Jifu then told his wife to prepare a crossbow to shoot the bird, but he shot the arrow at his wife to avenge his son. Since then, the bird has been named Berau, and Berau has been regarded as a symbol of inauspiciousness, believing that if Berau chirps near his home, there may be a disaster of blood and light.
Berau was regarded by the ancients as a symbol of bad luck, but Berau Benlao did not care. Image: James K. Lindsey/wikimedia
Berlau brooding is generally a pair of mates co-brooding, in courtship, the male will prepare a "dowry" to the female, generally the prey caught, and whether this dowry is rich, you can reflect the male's physical state and hunting level from one side, if the female bird accepts the male bird's dowry, it means that she is willing to lay eggs for the male bird.
Brooding Grey Burrow. Image: siburhan /inaturalist
Of course, as long as there is a marriage, there will be leg-splitting and cheating. Foreign institutions have specifically studied that as long as the food is enough to support Xiongberau to raise another family, it will find another small three; if it can raise another family, it will find another small four... The most interesting thing about the study is that the scum bird Xiongberau not only cheated, but also gave the dowry to the little three and four often better than the original. According to statistics, the slag bird often gives several times more vertebrate prey to the object of the affair than to the original. Sure enough, the forest is big and there are all kinds of birds, and doing this kind of thing of stepping on several boats is really not a good bird, so don't learn it.
There are also birds that do not pull tigers, one is raised as songbirds, specially listening to calls, and there is training to catch old thieves (sparrows). But it seems that training Berau is more troublesome, so there are still not as many people who raise Berau as many as they play eagles. At present, there is no stable artificial population in Berau, and the vast majority of individuals seen on the market are from the wild to catch, raise tigers and play with eagles, and put them in modern society, which not only causes great damage to nature, but also belongs to illegal acts. If you really want to raise birds, it is quite interesting to raise a tiger parrot, to borrow the words of the uncle at the beginning: "What tiger is not pulled!" ”
If you like wildlife, observe it from a distance and don't take it home, because it doesn't belong to you, but to itself. Instead of raising these wild wild animals, it is better to learn from Berau, hang more sausages and bacon at home, keep the stomach of the family, so that partners, children, parents and meow masters can love you more.
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