wood pigeons, swifts, Typoo's tyger

Says the wood pigeon: " Coo, cooo, coo, coo. Coo." Every bloody morning.

In one window of the sky this afternoon there are swifts, high above the lime tree and the roof of the house opposite, advertising their presence by their sharp cries. In the other window there are house martins.

A life size wooden tiger with an organ-like mechanism inside it simulating predatory roars and the screams of a doomed European pinned by four huge paws, apparently attracted the attention of Gustave Flaubert at the East India Company museum in Leadenhall Street, when he was in London in 1851. It is mentioned in the new biography of Gustave Flaubert by the American Frederick Brown.