Bush Warbler

Description

The Bush Warbler is olive brown above and tending toward dusky colors below. It has pale eyebrows. Its beak curves slightly upward, making some believe it looks to be smiling.

The bird’s drab colours and secretive nature mean it is rarely seen, concealed deep within shadowed foliage during the day, offering up only low chirping calls. All of this changes in the season of Wood, particularly that season’s Ascending month, when the Bush Warbler’s song changes to a distinctive and beautiful breeding call which can be heard across its range.

Habitat & Range

The Bush Warbler is native to the Blessed Isle. It prefers thick forests of bamboo or pine, often found in hilly and mountainous regions.

Theology

The god of Bush Warblers is Herald of Spring.

Cultural Significance

The Bush Warbler is viewed across the Blessed Isle as a sign of the Wood season’s beginning, heralding a time of growth and flowering amongst plants both wild and cultivated as well as the breeding periods of many other fauna.

Amongst the Dynasts and patricians of the Scarlet Empire, the spring season is a time of garden parties for flower viewing and poetry composition. Singing warblers are considered a desirable (sometimes even vital) feature of such gatherings, and the birds are sometimes known by the poetic names ‘spring heralding bird’ or ‘poem reading bird’.

This demand for singing warblers in Dynastic gardens requires significant effort to achieve. While many garden keepers would prefer to attract free birds, Bush Warblers do not favour the small, exposed environments of gardens. This has led to the birds being kept as cage birds, hung deep within the branches of garden trees where they can sing without the cages being seen. The cages are covered with paper or silk screens to reduce the amount of sunlight allowed to enter, as the warblers are known to offer up their most vibrant songs when they feel themselves enshadowed.

Closely linked with poetry, the Bush Warbler is a favoured motif in poems from the Dynasty and the Shogunate before it. In traditional poems and Dynastic Fashions, the warbler is linked to the Wood season (particularly its Ascending month) and plum blossoms.

The Bush Warbler has another use to the nobles of the Isle, besides entertaining with its music. The bird’s droppings can be used to produce a white powder which is used in cosmetics as a skin whitening agent and to remove fine wrinkles. It can also be used to remove stains from silk clothing without damaging the material.