#Raggfong

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Raggfong

This week's beast was the Raggfong, much to the dismay of everyone who is sick of birds. Again, sorry, there are a bunch... and the random distribution put a clump of them in December/January, so it's going to get worse before it gets better. If it helps, imagine it's some kind of ritual to empower the birds currently eating the Gävle goat. Or maybe a "Twelve Days of Christmas" sort of thing -- we've already had the partridge.

Also again please forgive me if I fail to string sentences together properly -- still sick. Covid, actually, turns out. The brain fog is difficult; almost forgot I was supposed to do this today.

Anyway, here is the link to the entry that our artists are working from:

(Why did I redact the Greek and Latin names for the coot? I'm not making any effort to hide its identity... baffling choice on the part of Past Me.)

And if you have no idea what this is about, you should take a look at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting for an explanation and previous entries.

As usual, art will appear in roughly chronological order under the cut.

@elodieunderglass (link to post here) responded days before anyone else with this image, which successfully conveys a lot of emotion in my opinion. Those are some very communicative facial expressions on the birds. I particularly like the coot, and how it's positioned to shield the chick from the sun. The real gem here, however, is the text of the post linked above, which I would describe as a prose poem about the bird depicted. I'm genuinely a bit blown away by it -- go click the link and read it for yourself.

@embervoices (link to post here) has got some kind of effect going on here that I don't know enough about art to describe, but I like the way it looks. Her post mentions the phoenix connection, which I think comes through pretty clearly in the design and pose. The linked post explains some design decisions, including which real-world birds were the inspiration for this one.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) helpfully specifies that this Raggfong is resting on a bed of sea kale. The design of this bird is very good, I think, conveying a certain gravity one does not always associate with seabirds. I also like the effect created by the background; it kind of looks like it's the cover for something, you know? The linked post explains the various birds from which the artist borrowed features and why, and also discusses the evocative nature of the entry this is based on -- I'm glad people are enjoying that aspect.

@rautavaara (link to post here) has made the executive decision that this bird is actually a frog, and the drawing is frankly too pretty for me to have any kind of problem with that. Look at that border. And the wonderful color palette. Also there's a flying frog, which is very cool.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) notes an emerging theme in these entries that birds (except coots) are jerks. I honestly can't remember how consistent that theme is across all the birds... I know there are some the author likes, but there are also definitely going to be additional Birds That Are Jerks in future. I like the crown-like crest on the Raggfong, and I'm impressed by the dedication involved in doing all those little body feathers with a fountain pen. Also, if you look closely, you'll see that one of those chicks the adult Raggfong is carrying has been shown staring off in the same direction as its parent, while the other has its head turned and its eyes closed, meaning we can expect it to join the coots off to the right... and there's already a young Raggfong there, too. The linked post contains a detailed explanation of design decisions, which you should go check out. (Also, thanks again for providing alt text.)

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has employed her usual medieval stylization to depict a Raggfong inspired by an albatross (on the grounds that they are a seabird with "judgy" eyes... you know, I can see it). I am absolutely delighted by the scrungliness of the chick being shown here, which does indeed have the "muppet made from dryer lint" quality of a real albatross chick. They have also included a series of pictures that show the whole life cycle, which I've decided (after substantial back-and-forth) to not copy over here as there's a certain color-of-the-sky quality there, but which I strongly encourage you to click on the link and look at for yourself. I particularly like that the coot in the "life cycle" picture appears to have a couple Ilyechams in her flock in addition to the new Raggfong.

@moustawott (link to post here) describes their Raggfong as a gannet mixed with an eagle, and it looks pretty majestic, honestly. The background really enhances that effect, and I think it makes a much more entertaining contrast with the two little chicks being carried below. There's a certain severity to the design that I think is fitting.

@pomrania (link to post here) has ditched the whole "coot" thing for a more direct interpretation of the Raggfong's "common counterpart", which they deem the "Ritchfong". I kind of like the idea of two related species of bird that the human observer has interpreted to have class divisions. The crest on the Raggfong is also a very appropriate touch, I think. The linked post contains additional detail on design decisions, and links to some process images, so go check that out.

@treesurface (link to post here) has decided that the Raggfong should actually be a sort of insect that people mistake for a bird, which I think is quite clever. They explain their reasoning for that a bit more in the linked post, along with some other notes on design and execution that I think are worth reading. I really like the concept that the "unmoving wings" are elytra, and the kind of glittering quality that they suggest here. (I also appreciate that they provide their own alt text.)

@karthara (link to post here) has drawn a Raggfong in several scenarios to express the behavior described in the entry. I really like the overall design here, with the feathery tufts on its head. Also charming is that one flying up near the sun -- it looks so happy to be on fire. The linked post explains the design decisions and the real-world birds from which karthara has taken inspiration. They also mention they included the coot chicks after looking them up and seeing how colorful they are, so I did a quick google and found this great headline:

(Tl:dr coot parents show preference for more colorful chicks, so the later the chick hatches, the more colorful it is, allowing it to compete with its larger, older siblings for food and attention.)

And finally, the Aberdeen Bestiary depiction:

The one diving into the basin just looks so goofy to me, sorry. Anyway, as I'm sure everyone has guessed, this is the eagle.

Yeah. I know. The whole "fiery rebirth" thing sounds like it should be the phoenix, but this bestiary has an entry for "Phoenix" and it's not this one.

Regular listeners to the Maniculum Podcast may recall this particular eagle behavior coming up before, in the quiz-show episode we did for the second part of "Sidrak & Bokkus". I still don't really know where this idea comes from, but there you go. Eagles.

I feel like there's some kind of comment that could be made over the lack of compassion shown by the medieval eagle here and, you know...

... but I can't quite formulate it, so you'll have to write your own.

Anyway, see y'all next week for our next beaſt.

[elodieunderglass]

O Raggfong, owl-footed puffling, lonely child of burning house! Your foster-mother would spare you this fate if she could! She’d keep you in the shade of the humble ways, and never chide you for dullness. But there is no cure for the restless heart of the Raggfong, the light-touched, light-consumed, starveling, burning with the same ambitions that blind you. Who could love a Raggfong, but a heart like cool dark water?

(A @maniculum bestiary entry, prompt here: https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/736516240072376320)

[rautavaara]

A bird of our birds. A gliding Raggfong, hunting for fish. For the 6th bestiary prompt.

[coolest-capybara]

Another bird in the Maniculum Bestiaryposting Challenge: The Raggfong (which I think is one of the coolest-sounding names so far)!

From the entry, I assumed it was some kind of seabird. Being also described as condemning its children "not in a harsh manner but with the honesty of a judge", I decided on an albatros. Mainly because they have the "regal" bearing described in the entry, but also because their eyes seem a bit judgy. This specimen is in the process of testing its chick (if you haven't seen albatros chicks before, look them up. They do look Like That), but I did depict the entire life cycle of the raggfong under the cut:

Do you love the color of this guy? (I had to. Not sorry)

I originally wanted to upload this as a full picture, but tumblr wouldn't let me do it without scaling it down too much. If anyone has tips on how to get around that, please let me know! I hope this shows up more or less the way I intended for now. You can see the fully grown raggfong flying up to the sun to fry itself, the judgement of the chick, the fried raggfong flying towards a spring, the fallen chick that could not maintain a fearless gaze into the sun, the rejuvenation of the grown raggfong in the spring, and the place where all the forsaken bird chicks go.

[cheapsweets]

The stately Raggfong

My response to this week's BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum

Once more, I ask you to consider, are birds jerks? The authors of medieval bestiaries seem to think, yes, they are!*

Initial pencil sketch for the proportions, then Sailor fude nib fountain pen for the inking, with Rohrer & Klingner Sepia ink, on A5 paper (90gsm).

I'd already determined that for the next bird that came up, I wanted to try putting more detail on the feathers; unfortunately I fear this may have gotten in the way a little, as it makes it more difficult to see the chicks the Raggfong is holding in each of it's claws. Hopefully what I was trying to achieve comes across enough! :D

*except for coots; coots, apparently, are awesome.

Reasoning below the cut, as per usual...

"The Raggfong is so called because of the sharpness of its eyes, for it is said to be of such keen vision that it glides above the sea on unmoving wings, out of human sight, yet from such a height sees small fish swimming below and, swooping down like a missile thrown from a siege engine, it seizes its prey on the wing and carries it to land."

- That's quite some description already! My first thought was of some kind of dragon, soaring high above the seas, except that a) we've already had a dragon, and b) the description later states that we're talking about a bird. I tried to make its eye nice and big, to represent it's sharp vision, and we have the suggestion of waves down below (and a very worried looking medieval fishie...!).

"When the Raggfong grows old, however, its wings grow heavy, and its eyes grow dim. Then it seeks out a spring and, turning away from it, flies up into the atmosphere of the sun; there it sets its wings alight and, likewise, burns off the dimness in its eyes in the sun’s rays. Descending at length, it immerses itself in the spring three times; immediately it is restored to the full strength of its wings, the former brightness of its eyes." - This is all cool, but I couldn't work out how best to represent this without detracting from what else I wanted to do with it.

"It is also said of the Raggfong that it exposes its young to the sun’s rays, holding them in its claws in mid-air. If any of them, struck by the light beating down from the sun, maintains a fearless gaze without damaging its sight, this is taken as proof that it has shown itself true to its nature. But if the young bird turns its eyes away from the rays, it is rejected as unworthy of its kind and of such a father and, being unworthy of being begotten, it is considered unworthy of being reared."

- The Raggfong definitely seems to be an ocean bird; it doesn't read like a hawk, which confused me a bit at first, since how is it grabbing things (including its chicks) with webbed feet? However, after a little research I found that some waterbirds (including coots!) have lobate feet; lobes of skin on either side of the toes that expand when it swims, but probably wouldn't get in the way when it held things. I wasn't able to include enough detail to show this, but cool fact nontheless.

The legs were based on an osprey (just in terms of managing to hold something within its claws), and the general body shape and wings on a cormorant (mostly because I could find reasonably good references!)

We can see the Raggfong holding up two of its chicks, one in each claw; the one on the left of the picture stares defiantly at the sun (I'm not convinced this will help its keen vision...), but the one on the right of the picture is more sensible and is looking away... :(

"The Raggfong condemns it not in a harsh manner but with the honesty of a judge."

- Birds. Are. Jerks. :p

"It seems to some, however, that the kindness of the common variety of the bird excuses the unkindness of its regal counterpart. The ordinary bird is called [redacted], coot; in Greek, [redacted]. Taking up the young Raggfong, abandoned or unacknowledged, the coot adds it to its brood, making it one of the family, with the same maternal devotion as it shows to its own young, and feeds and nourishes the young Raggfong and its own brood with equal attention."

- The description of the Raggfong as 'regal' informed how I approached the head. I wanted to make it at least a little fancy, and considered a variety of options (including long, flowy eyebrows - and even a lyrebird/bird of paradise inspired tail before realising that would decidedly get in the way of catching fish) before I settled on a grebe-inspired crest, loosely resembling a crown.

Now coots, I know what they look like! In the bottom right we see a parent coot with three of its babies, as well as a young Raggfong it adopted. Its nice to know that some of these bestiary entries have a happy ending!

As an aside, I haven't managed to capture exactly how scrungly baby coots look; they are absolutely delightful! :D

[embervoices]

Too crispy this week to get fancy.

When the Raggfong grows old,… [it] flies up into the atmosphere of the sun; there it sets its wings alight and, likewise, burns off the dimness in its eyes in the sun's rays. Descending at length, it immerses itself in the spring three times; immediately it is restored to the full strength of its wings, the former brightness of its eyes.

So, a phoenix kind of bird that goes solar and then takes a bath? Sure, okay.

I can't remember why I thought a Crane was a likely starting point, but I knew I wanted some peacock-like details to take it more towards a traditional firebird look. Wisps of fire and droplets of water are coming off the bird, and the sun blazes behind their head, as they are restored to health after bathing in light, fire and water.

[silverhart-makes-art]

Here an adult Raggfong in non-breeding plumage gazes up at the sun from a bed of sea kale.

I think the Raggfong is my favorite of the Bestiary Posting animals so far. Not necessarily my design (which I do love, don't get me wrong), but just the description. It reads like the setup for a 'Watership Down' style novel about birds who worship the sun, and I decided to channel that energy into my piece. I also have no clue what this bird could actually be, but would love to hear the stories behind the descriptions (brood parasitism as an explanation for rejected chicks being raised by another bird, maybe?)

The description sounds very mythic - like a legendary sunbird, but it seems to make a point that it's a seabird. So I scrapped my original instinct of a heron/phoenix feel. The description of it 'gliding on unmoving wings' put me in mind of an albatross, so I gave it albatross wings for long distance soaring. From there I started adding various other seabirds into the mix: a gannet-like beak and a cormorant-neck for it's diving abilities, a tern's tail to add elegance, an osprey's keen eyes, and lastly a little mustache like an Inca tern, purely for style.

[karthara]

Raggfong.

I was looking at a mixture of birds for this, Long-tailed Jaeger and White bellied Sea Eagle ended up being the main ones I went with though I did keep the blue/grey I saw in the Southern Giant Petrel and the Magnificent Frigatebird. Also included a Coot with a couple chicks because I didn't realize they were so brightly coloured before and I love them. So, high flying with sharp eyes to hunt, burning off the old and grey in the sun and bathing in a pool, and keeping the bold chick and leaving the timid one to be adopted by the Coot.

[treesurface]

Raggfong

cw insects

maniculum bestiary post for this week! here's the link to the description, drawing under the readmore:

i originally thought i would draw a bird, then decided to make something weirder after reading the descriptions of unmoving wings and eyes that can grow dim. As such, i decided to make it an insect that could feasibly be mistaken for a bird, hence the longer backmost legs, which it uses to catch fish in addition to its abdomen claws(presumably it's a rather frighteningly sized insect, if it's eating fish). I do think that my justification for this non-standard interpretation is that it gets mistaken for a bird due to its size, shape, and behavior of diving into the sea to catch fish

the raggfong is mostly designed with the body of a beetle. The unmoving wings are represented by its elytra, with the actual flight being from the hindwings. I really like the vague scribbles i used to depict the hindwings, it feels like it kind of depicts their motion but also their veined surfaces.

i liked the association with the sun, and the creature being something that can look into the sun unharmed, so i drew its eyes and elytra as sort of gemlike structures that would seem to catch alight in the sunlight. I also thought the description of the creature seemed to have a somewhat positive view of it, so i kind of like how the pose makes it very vaguely resemble some depictions of humanlike angels, with the luminous head and multiple pairs of wings, then the arms and lower body beneath that.

i'm really happy with this one! I wasn't especially expecting to, since it was rather rushed since i've had lots of other projects this week. Also i hope the screen reader text works okay, i'm still pretty new to that but trying to get better about adding that to visual art stuff.

[moustawott]

I missed last week’s creature, too busy 😭 But I’m back! Here’s my submission for the raggfong for the #maniculum bestiaryposting challenge by @/maniculum!

Since the description doesn’t have much about the appearance (apart from its eyes and the fact it dives to catch fish), I’ve decided to go with a gannet mixed with an eagle!

[pomrania]

Yes, I know I'm late for this week's Bestiaryposting creature; what can I say, distraction is one hell of a drug.

And it's… another bird. Heck. Welp, I knew I'd have to get working on figuring out birds EVENTUALLY, and at least I have a decent book at home that shows a bunch of different kinds of birds in different poses, so I've actual reference for "what do non-sparrow birds even look like".

Anyways, this one is called a "raggfong", and it mostly describes a behaviour, but let's see what physical description I can gleam from it….

It has keen eyesight, "glides above the sea on unmoving wings" (which would prolly be more helpful if I actually knew what different wing types meant for various functions), hunts fish and grabs them and takes them to land. It's described as "regal", and can look directly at the sun without flinching.

I somehow free-associated to "kingfisher" (prolly "regal" + "fish"), so while I highly doubt an that's what a raggfong is, I think I'll use a colour scheme at least inspired by that, also because it is cool and pretty and not brown. I think "heron" visual vibes would fit better with what I half have in mind, also a) they look cool and b) it's about as far as you can get from "sparrow" while still being a flying avian. (There's nothing wrong with sparrows; they're just my default mental image for 'bird' so I'm consciously trying to move away from that for here.)

I think I'd also want to draw the "common" variant of the raggfong… which my tired mind just thought would be hilarious to call the "ritchfong". (Rags/riches -> rag/rich -> ragg/ritch.) The "ritchfong" would have the same bauplan (I think that's the word?), but look, well, "common". NOT sparrow-coloured, but less vivid.

Here's what I've doodled up. I'll have to figure out how to better interpret that, and what elements I want to keep or change, plus what varies with the ritchfong, later, but that's a problem for future me.

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting -- Raggfong

As a reminder, all previous entries in this series can be found at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting .

The Raggfong is so called because of the sharpness of its eyes, for it is said to be of such keen vision that it glides above the sea on unmoving wings, out of human sight, yet from such a height sees small fish swimming below and, swooping down like a missile thrown from a siege engine, it seizes its prey on the wing and carries it to land. When the Raggfong grows old, however, its wings grow heavy, and its eyes grow dim. Then it seeks out a spring and, turning away from it, flies up into the atmosphere of the sun; there it sets its wings alight and, likewise, burns off the dimness in its eyes in the sun's rays. Descending at length, it immerses itself in the spring three times; immediately it is restored to the full strength of its wings, the former brightness of its eyes. It is also said of the Raggfong that it exposes its young to the sun's rays, holding them in its claws in mid-air. If any of them, struck by the light beating down from the sun, maintains a fearless gaze without damaging its sight, this is taken as proof that it has shown itself true to its nature. But if the young bird turns its eyes away from the rays, it is rejected as unworthy of its kind and of such a father and, being unworthy of being begotten, it is considered unworthy of being reared. The Raggfong condemns it not in a harsh manner but with the honesty of a judge. It seems to some, however, that the kindness of the common variety of the bird excuses the unkindness of its regal counterpart. The ordinary bird is called [redacted], coot; in Greek, [redacted]. Taking up the young Raggfong, abandoned or unacknowledged, the coot adds it to its brood, making it one of the family, with the same maternal devotion as it shows to its own young, and feeds and nourishes the young Raggfong and its own brood with equal attention.

Remember to tag posts with #Raggfong so folks can find them.

[cheapsweets]

The perspicacious Yaggzrok

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum

I feel like I'm definitely getting better at drawing birds, but it's also making it much more obvious when I mess up the anatomy :D

Initial pencil sketch, then Sailor fude nib fountain pen with Rohrer & Klingner Sepia ink for the lines. I think I need to find a fine-nib fountain pen, and try drawing with that - the flexibility of the fude nib (in terms of thick/thin lines and being able to transition easily between them) is really nice, but for now being able to keep a consistent (and thin) line would benefit me more in terms of learning and practicing, particularly some of the tiny details I keep trying to include! :D

Reasoning under the cut...

Isidore says this about it: ‘The Yaggzrok is so called because it does not feed on the ground but catches its food and eats it in the air. It is a twittering bird that flies in twisting, turning loops and circuits, is highly skilled in building its nest and rearing its young, and has also a kind of foresight because it lets you know when buildings are about to fall by refusing to nest on their tops. In addition, it is not harassed by birds of prey nor is it ever their victim. It flies across the sea and winters there.’ -

So, we know this is a twittering bird that exhibits 'hawking' behaviour (eating on the wing), and that it nests on the top of buildings. How does it do that? Well, it's here that I start to have some suspicions about this creature's identity, so I start to backpedal furiously. Now, non-small birds that make their nests on houses? How about storks, nesting on chimney stacks? I'm not entirely sure how fire-safe the nest in the top-right illustration is, but maybe the smoke keeps parasites out?

We can also see that the canny Yaggzrok has been very smart about which house the nest was built on. The owner of the house marvels at his good fortune, while his neighbour... :(

The top left illustration shows the Yaggzrok flying in loops over a body of water.

The Yaggzrok is a tiny bird but of an eminently pious nature; lacking in everything, it constructs nests which are more valuable than gold because it builds them wisely. For the nest of wisdom is more precious than gold. And what is wiser than to have, as the Yaggzrok does, the capacity to fly where it likes and to entrust its nest and its young to the houses of men, where none will attack them. For there is something attractive in the way that the Yaggzrok accustoms its young from their earliest days to the company of people and keeps them safe from the attacks of hostile birds. -

It's a small bird, so nothing so magnificent as a raggfong, but we do know it's extremely skilled at constructing its nests (though I suspect 'more valuable than gold' might be pushing it). Again, it's reiterated that it builds nests on human houses - it you look *really* carefully you can see a couple of Yaggzrok chicks peeking out of their nest, waiting for a parent to return.

Then, remarkably, the Yaggzrok creates a regularly-proportioned home for itself without any assistance, like a skilled craftsman. For it gathers bits of straw in its mouth and smears them with mud so that they stick together; but because it cannot carry the mud in its claws, it dips the tips of its wings in water, so that dust sticks to them easily and turns into slime, with which to gather to itself bits of straw or tiny twigs, a few at a time, and makes them stick. It makes the whole fabric of the nest in this fashion, in order that its young can live safely as if on a solid floor in houses on the ground, lest any of them insert a foot between the small gaps in the woven fabric or the cold should get to the very young. -

More detail on the nests - a regularly proportioned home? A solid floor? Maybe the sharp angles in the corners of the nest are a little excessive, but they bring across the point!

In the bottom left, we can see a Yaggzrok gathering material for the next; straw in the mouth, ready to be smeared in mud, but more importantly, *slime* on the wings... :p

This conscientiousness is fairly common among most birds, yet what is distinctive about the Yaggzrok is its special loving care, shrewd intelligence and the extraordinary quality of its understanding. Then there is its skill in the arts of healing: if its young are infected by blindness or pricked in the eye, it has some kind of healing power with which it can restore their vision. -

At this point, I couldn't think of much to express this part of its behaviour, so I opted for a more detailed sketch of the Yaggzrok hawking (which also gave me an excuse to draw a medieval bug!).

In terms of general anatomy, I looked at flycatchers (small, hawking birds, some of which have a small crest), but dialled up the exageration to make it a little more distinctive. In terms of the overall structure and setup, I was influenced by @coolest-capybara's Raggfong illustration and the multiple panels, given that I wanted to express multiple different aspects of this bird's behaviour (I did it in a less narrative way though, which I might rethink if I try this structure again).

I also took some inspiration from this post that @coolest-capybara reblogged; my copy of M.S. Bodley 764 is still in mothballs while I'm following these challenges, so I'm trying to find some good resourses for medieval illustrations (houses was a real struggle!) without doing direct searches for animals and (potentially) getting spoiled...

[pomrania]

This is my rendition of the raggfong, from the Bestiaryposting that @maniculum is doing. Also including its "common" counterpart, which I have decided should logically be called the "ritchfong" (rag/rich, ragg/ritch, get it?), plus a juvenile.

The colour scheme was loosely inspired by a kingfisher, since I'd free-associated to that by "regal" + "hunts fish" -> "king + fisher"; the overall body shape is roughly based off a heron, since they look cool and also they're roughly as far from "sparrow" (my automatic default for "bird") as you can get while staying within "flying avian". The precise colours here are all from the default colour palette because I started working on this later than I should have, so I didn't have the energy to come up with anything else. But it looks fine regardless so that's good.

This time, I actually consulted a book with lots of pictures of birds in it, so while I'm still not an expert at drawing birds, at least it's better than what I'd done just going off of memory. Because "memory" is only as good as any "observation" you may have done in the past, and I've just never really observed birds (or pictures of birds) that well.

You can find the progress thread for this piece here; I don't think there's any important details there that I didn't include here, but also it's rather late so I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out I'd forgotten something.

[cheapsweets]

The officinal Glugreng

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge from @maniculum

Jinhao shark fountain pen with fine, hooded nib, with Monteverde Raven Noir ink, over initial pencil sketch.

Reasoning below the cut;

"The bird called Glugreng, as Physiologus tells us, is white all over; it has no black parts. Its excrement cures cataract in the eyes. It is to be found in royal residences. If anyone is sick, he will learn from the Glugreng if he is to live or die. If, therefore, a man’s illness is fatal, the Glugreng will turn its head away from the sick man as soon as it sees him, and everyone knows that the man is going to die. But if the man’s sickness is one from which he will recover, the bird looks him in the face and takes the entire illness upon itself; it flies up into the air, towards the sun, burns off the sickness and scatters it, and the sick man is cured."

The white birb that Looks At You (that's a good sign, right?)

We don't have a lot to go on here; it's white, for starters, and royalty like keeping it around. This made me think of falconry, with the (potentially fanciful) strict hierarchy of what rank of nobility can fly which birds. So, a falcon it is!

Bird of prey also makes sense when you consider how similar some of the description is to the actions of the Raggfong (albeit much more selfless that that noble bird...)

Incidentally, when doing the research for reference material for this one (particularly around falconry ranks), I now have a suspicion what this description might be of. At this point it was too late to do a reversal of my concept, and I could very well be barking up the wrong tree, but I'll be interested to find out...!

Because there's no pattern described, I didn't add one, to give it an all white appearance. That does leave it looking a bit sparse.

I had two concepts for this one when I started; the first was this one (Looking At You) which I figured was an interesting way to go, given the behaviour it exhibits, and the second was a picture of it in its natural environment (royal residence, probably with a token regent or two). Time pressure and what I thought would be most amusing resulted in the former.

This was an interesting challenge to see how well I could draw something symetrical. It's okay, I have other strengths, right? ;)

Also, please don't put bird droppings in your eyes... :(