During the Christmas break, Kit and I went for regular walks along the Swan River near our apartment. Or, more accurately, I walked, and Kit came along for the ride in my bag like a pampered tiny dog. Except that my bag is not designer. I don’t think it even was designed. It is a backpack of a certain age that has more or less evolved. And Kit doesn’t have a diamante studded collar. And he certainly doesn’t have one of those preposterous toy poodle hair-dos that look like The Revenge of the Topiary-loving Gardener. But, I can assure you, that if he wanted a topiary hair-do or any of those other things, he would probably get them, so he is definitely pampered.
One day we were approached by a woman watching cockatoos. She excitedly pointed out a bird that didn’t look quite like the rest of its flock. She was certain it was a hybrid between a galah and a corella. I squinted myopically over a fence, from a number of metres away (quite a large number of metres). It certainly looked like it might be a hybrid. But then again, from that distance, if she had suggested that it was a ferret dancing the highland fling, I would have been inclined to believe her.
When we walked on Kit asked, “What’s a hybrid? Is it a kind of bird that flies really high? And are there lowbrids, like those ones that just wander around in the swamp, and never get off the ground?”
“A hybrid is a cross between one animal and another- two different species,” I explained.
“How does that work?” he asked, “Did someone chop them up like Frankenstein’s monster?”
“No!” I laughed, “You know that talk we had about the birds and the bees? Well, it’s like if a bird did it with a bee, and they ended up having a baby that was half bird and half bee.”
“But that’s bestiality,” Kit gasped, appalled.
I said nothing, wondering how on earth to address that declaration.
“That’s immoral,” he asserted.
“Well, it’s not quite like that,” I went on, “Actually a bird and a bee couldn’t have a baby; they are too different. It only works with very similar species.”
“But you just said….”
“I know, and I’m regretting it already. I was generalizing.”
“Oh,” he said.
“It would be good if you didn’t,” he added.
“Sorry. I’ll do my best.”
“That would be good.”
“Anyway, that means Eric the Half a Bee in the Monty Python sketch couldn’t actually be half bird?” he queried.
“I’m afraid not,” I confirmed.
“Well, it sounded a lot more interesting in the beginning when you said he could be, so I’m going to do a drawing of Eric the Half a Bee Half a Bird,” Kit decided. Below is his offering.
