The Dodo Blog

From Zazzle: Dodo University T-shirt, designed by Ryan. Price: starting at $24.20, but it would cost much more for me (taxes + customs + shipping).

Do-Do Bird by Tattoo Andy. BTW, that’s not the first dodo tattoo I found. There are more dodo fans that we can image. Maybe I need to have my own dodo tattoo.

Dodos Are Forever is a musical for children in the 8-14 age range. It is based on the book, of the same title, by Dick King-Smith. Mr. King-Smith very kindly gave his permission for the piece to be premiered by the pupils of Comberton Middle School, Kidderminster in June 1999. There is a “Dodos’ Song” midi version on the page.

Occasionally the neanderthal would go off and paint. That’s a carved wood dodo bird in the foreground.

Dodo bird as religious icon.

The Dodo bird as religious icon are from the set Jesus Reads to A Neanderthal by Daren Rabinovich (I think) at the Low Gallery, photographed by Christina.

From the The Mauritius Post Ltd: An Official First Day Cover is an envelope which the post office puts on sale on the first day of an issue. The stamp or stamps are cancelled with a special cachet. And the latest First Day Cover (FDC) is The Dodo above.

This set of postage stamps/ souvenir sheet issued by the Mauritius Post Ltd portrays different representations of the Dodo through drawings and paintings of various artists at different times.

Rs5 Journal of the Gelderland, 1601
An important contribution to the early eye-witness accounts of the Dodo are the drawings found in the Journal of Admiral Wolfert Harmenszoon, who commanded the second Dutch fleet of five ships to visit Mauritius in 1601. The flagship of this expedition was the Gelderland which was one of the original ships to call into Mauritius with Vice-Admiral Warwyck in 1598. The Gelderland Journal is particularly valuable as it includes four drawings of living Dodos, and one drawing of a dead one.

Rs10 Adrian Van de Venne, 1626
This pen drawing by Adrian Van de Venne of a rather fat looking Dodo was drawn around 1626, and it can be found in the Library at the University of Utrecht, Holland. It is probable that this image was modelled from a crudely stuffed bird, or even copied from some other artist, which led to exaggerations of one painter to another.

Rs15 Harrison, 1798
This painting appeared in a publication by Harrison, Cluse and Co., of No. 78, Fleet Street, London, in 1798. It seems to have been copied from one of the best known Savery pictures which was presented to the Natural History Museum, London in 1759.

Rs25 J.W. Frohawk, 1905
This chromolithograph by J.W. Frohawk is taken from Lord Walter Rothschild’s Extinct Birds which was published in 1907. The same artist painted a number of pictures for the same publication. Lord Walter Rothschild came from a family of rich bankers but his consuming interest was in ornithology and extinct birds in particular.

Rs25 Souvenir Sheet by Julian Pender Hume
Julian Pender Hume is a Palaeontologist by profession which enables him to bring accuracy to his artistic impressions of extinct animals. His painting showing a reconstruction of endemic fauna of Mauritius has been reproduced on the Souvenir Sheet.

First Day Cover Illustration
The illustration on the First Day Cover is a reproduction of the Dodo’s head from a bronze statue situated at Ile aux Aigrettes.

Ok, now I’m desperate. Does any one have an idea of how can I get those stamps and the FDC envelope? Do I have any readers in Mauritius? Any suggestions? *Sigh*

Update: I think I’ve discovered a way to buy them on the on-line shop of the Philatelic Products. I just need to discover how much will cost me the international transfer from bank in Brazil to Mauritius. *Ouch*

Dodo Cromo from Nacional de Chocolates by Mauricio Giraldo.

I’m usually against animated gifs, but that one is too good to ignore. The image above is from the Geocities site Dodo WEB. The site has some known information about the birds, the origin of their name, the sad history about their extinction, images and links – almost all broken. Well, it’s an old site about dodos, and that’s why we can’t judge it. The best part of it are the original dodo illustrations, like the one above.

The Last Dodo is a BBC Books original novel written by Jacqueline Rayner and based on the long running science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones. It was published on 19 April 2007, after the television debut of companion Martha Jones, alongside Sting of the Zygons, and Wooden Heart.

Description from the BBC Shop:

After a trip to the zoo, the Doctor and Martha go in search of a real live dodo, and are transported by the TARDIS to the mysterious Museum of the Last Ones. There, in the Earth section, they discover every extinct creature up the the present day – billions of them, from the tiniest insect to the biggest dinosaur, all still alive and in suspended animation.

Preservation is the Museum’s only job – collecting the last of every endangered species from all over the universe. And for millenia the Museum has been trying to trace one elusive specimen: the last of the Time Lords.

Featuring the Doctor and Martha as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman in the hit series.

Statue of a mauriciuszi dodo (Raphus cucullatus), from the site of birds by the Hungarian ecologist, parasitologist and writer Rózsa Lajos. I don’t speak the language, but I think that “Dodofélék” means “Dodo Bird” according to the site.

Funny sign placed in some place in Nimes, France. It’s a pity that the sign “No Dodos” is redundant no matter were it was. Sigh. Uploaded by Mr Hyde.