With the Latest James Bond Film, No Time to Die, Arriving in Early April, Now's a Good Time to Take a Closer Look at the Birds

Licensed to thrill With the latest James Bond film, No Time to Die, arriving in early April, now’s a good time to take a closer look at the birds of Ian Fleming and 007

Words: Jim Wright

Red-billed tiful bird in Jamaica, and irdwatchers who love Ian The most beau Steamertail Fleming’s thrillers know he some say the most beautiful bird in the stole the name for his secret world, is the streamertail or doctor agent from the dust jacket of humming-bird. The cock bird is about nine ornithologist James Bond’s Birds inches long, but seven inches of it are tail of the West Indies. Not as widely known: – two long black feathers that curve and Bwild birds often play integral roles in cross each other and whose inner edges are Fleming’s spy novels, and he depicted them in a form of scalloped design. The head and with a knowledge and affection seldom seen crest are black, the wings dark green, the in most mainstream fiction. long bill is scarlet, and the eyes, bright and Take the author’s favourites, the confiding, are black. The body is emerald hummingbirds of Goldeneye, his winter retreat green, so dazzling that when the sun is on on the north shore of Jamaica. Fleming planted hibiscus and bougainvillea to attract a trio of the breast you see the brightest green thing endemics – outlandish Red-billed Streamertails, in nature.

shimmering Jamaican Mangos and tiny Vervains .

ght i wr m i Ian Fleming, “For Your Eyes Only” j The streamertails clearly fascinated Fleming. He wrote about them twice. In addition to opening the short story For Your Eyes Only, they make a cameo appearance in Live and Let Die: “Like dangling emerald pendants the two hummingbirds were making their last rounds of the hibiscus.” Ramsey Acosta, the long-time gardener at Goldeneye, says another Fleming favourite was the Jamaican Nightingale, better known as the Northern Mockingbird.

Jamaican Mango

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Ian Fleming (right) A lamy meets James Bond ours

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Acosta says Fleming loved how the bird sang at twilight. No surprise, then, that the thriller-writer used it to help set The real James Bond (1900-1989) and 007 a scene in both For Your Eyes Only and shared much in common. Both were tall, Live and Let Die, writing in the latter that lean and part Scottish. Both were “a mocking bird had started on its graduates of British public schools evening song, sweeter than [an English] (Harrow for the real Bond, Eton for nightingale’s, from the summit of a bush Fleming’s character). Both loved to travel of night-scented jasmine.” to exotic locales and to spend their winters The streamertails and mockingbirds in the Caribbean. Both smoked cigarettes, stand out for another reason – unlike though the real Bond, who preferred to be M ark C most birds in Fleming’s fiction, they live called ‘Jim’, later switched to a pipe. Both to vocalise another day. Goldeneye Villa, Jamaica oll i n s drank hard liquor. And both were skilled in Later in For Your Eyes Only, Bond the use of firearms. Secret Agent 007 travels to the United States and watches preferred a Beretta and later a Walther through the telescopic sight of his Savage pivoted sharply. He took his heel against innocence and nature. It also Fleming used the slaying of a bird as PPK; Jim Bond, a double-barrelled rifle as the villainous Von Hammerstein away and wiped it on the grass beside foreshadowed more death and destruction shotgun. One huge difference: Jim Bond suddenly kills a Belted Kingfisher in a the heap of feathers. The others stood – but more on that a bit later. a dramatic device to provide a spent much of his career shooting birds burst of machine-gun fire: round, laughing and applauding The first of the bird killings came in dramatic display of evil without and studying them. In contrast, Fleming’s “The kingfisher, a handful of tattered obsequiously. Von Hammerstein’s red Live and Let Die, his second 007 novel: shedding human blood 007 never killed a bird and was disgusted blue and grey feathers, thudded to the lips grinned with pleasure.” “A pelican, grey with a pale yellow when a villain did. lawn and lay fluttering. Von Hammerstein, Fleming used the slaying of a bird as head, was hunched on one of the mooring smoke still dribbling from the snout of his a dramatic device to provide a dramatic posts on the end of the jetty. He let them wings and planed down towards the water. The Brown Pelican hunts so skillfully tommy-gun, walked a few steps and put display of evil without shedding human [Bond and Leiter] get very close, then The two men stood and watched him that it avoids casting a tell-tale shadow in bored. ‘As you know, it’s bird dung. the heel of his naked foot down and blood. The killing symbolized a crime reluctantly gave a few heavy beats of his flying slowly along just above the order to surprise its prey. The Robber, in Comes from the rear end of two birds, the surface of the harbour. Suddenly he contrast, simply blasts his quarry out of masked booby and the guanay. So far as crashed clumsily down, his long bill the sky – for the hell of it. Crab Key is concerned, it’s only the

Roseate Spoonbill jim wright snaking out and down in front of him. It In Dr. No, the sixth 007 novel, lots guanay, otherwise known as the green Kling-Kling Bird at came up clutching a small fish which he of birds and tons of bird guano play cormorant, same bird as you find in Goldeneye moodily swallowed. Then the heavy bird supporting roles. Bond is sent to Jamaica England. The guanay is a machine for got up again and went on fishing, flying to investigate the disappearance of two converting fish into guano. They mostly mostly into the sun so that its big shadow MI6 staffers and discovers suspicious eat anchovies. Just to show you how much would give no warning. ... goings-on on Crab Key, owned by Dr. fish they eat, they’ve found up to seventy “The Robber looked briefly up, Junius No. anchovies inside one bird!’” narrowed his eyes and pulled the trigger. Fleming most likely forgot to consult his The pelican gave a faint squawk and they Guano mine Birds of the West Indies when he wrote heard its heavy body crash into the water... Half the island is an Audubon that passage. A more likely candidate was “‘Why the hell d’you do that for?’ asked sanctuary where the Roseate Spoonbill the double-crested cormorant. Bond’s Bond furiously. population has dwindled. (“Looks like description begins: “General color glossy “‘Practice,’ said the man, pumping a sort of pink stork with an ugly flat bill greenish black.”

another bullet into the breech.” which it uses for digging for food in the The good news for the cormorants –

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If you want to portray a villain as mud,” Fleming writes.) whichever species they were – was that no

s wicked in four paragraphs without The other half is a guano mine: villains were around to shoot them. As for on jim wright torturing humans or kittens, the above “‘Now then, guano.’” Pleydell-Smith the man behind the deaths of the passage provides a textbook example. tilted his chair back. Bond prepared to be spoonbills, Dr No later gets his just deserts

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Femmes of a different feather U n i ted A rch i ve s G m bH /

Claudine Auger played Domino

Vitali in Thunderball, 1965 A lamy

Although ‘bird’ is the by-now hackneyed term for the attractive women who jim wright Turkey Vulture, or Turkey Buzzard, or John Crow populate Fleming’s novels, the thrillers featured two of these human birds. Both women were beautiful femme fatales (spoiler alert), when 007 commandeers named for birds of the West Indies. a guano-loading machine and buries him Domino Vitali (Thunderball) was

alive under a load of bird droppings. D orl i ng Ki nder s ley ltd/ named for the Common Yellowthroat, That’s justice far more poetic than Dr. once known in Jamaica as the Domino No’s demise in the 1962 movie version. Bird because the black feathers around its In the film, Bond boiled him alive in eyes resemble the domino mask so

a nuclear reactor. j i m wr ght Goldeneye Villa popular with comic-book heroes and Brown Pelican seen from the sea A lamy carnival-goers. Room filled with tension U n i ted A rch i ve s G m bH / Fleming saved some of his finest bird descriptions for his final 007 outing, The ruffle themselves up to almost twice squashed toad or a dead bush rat. The Fleming saved some of his finest bird Man with the Golden Gun, written in early their normal size.” circling buzzard had found its offal. It 1964. Bond travels to Jamaica to kill Scaramanga – the man with the golden came lower and lower. Bond wished it bon descriptions for his final 007 outing, arch-villain Francisco ‘Pistols’ gun – makes his entrance and tension appetit. The predator in him wished the The Man with the Golden Gun, written A lamy Scaramanga. They meet for the first time fills the room: scavenger a good meal. He smiled at the in a Kingston bordello where a young “The kling-klings, Joe and May, comparison between them. They were in early 1964 woman named Tiffy runs the café. smelled the same electricity. With a both following a scent. The main Jane Seymour played Solitaire in Live and Let Die, 1973, seen here The Kling-klings – Jamaican Grackles – tremendous din of metallic squawks, difference was that the John Crow was a the same manner as he did with the cane. There was applause from under with some bloke arrive just before Scaramanga. they fled for the open window, like black protected bird. No one would shoot back at pelican slaying in Live and Let Die. the yellow roof.” “At once, from the direction of the thieves escaping into the night. it when it made its final dive.” By mentioning that the vulture is a As with the killing of the Belted Lignum Vitae tree, two large black birds, “The explosions from the Colt .45 protected species, Scaramanga’s killing of Kingfisher in For Your Eyes Only, the Fleming named Solitaire (Live and Let slightly smaller than ravens, whirled in, were deafening. The two birds Bond and bird the bird three pages later becomes that senseless slaying of the vulture is Die) for the Rufous-throated Solitaire circled the interior of the cafe amidst a disintegrated against the violet backdrop It’s worth noting that Fleming refers to the much more horrible, even as it seals celebrated by those who witness it, (a thrush with a beautiful, almost haunting metallic clangour of song unlike the song of the dusk, the scraps of feathers and vulture both as a Turkey Buzzard and a Scaramanga’s fate: underscoring their heartlessness. call). You are most likely to hear this of any other bird in the world, and untidily pink flesh blasting out of the yellow light John Crow (the Jamaican nickname). He “A hundred yards ahead, a turkey Fleming’s knowledge of birds and elusive bird in the Blue Mountains, where landed on the counter within reach of of the café into the limbo of the deserted then draws a parallel between Bond and buzzard rose from beside the line, and his affection for them shines through in Fleming would occasionally go birding on Bond’s hand. They strutted up and down street like shrapnel.” bird, predator and scavenger, that shows after a few heavy flaps, caught the inshore his 007 fiction. By having his muleback - the mountains were too far imperiously, eyeing Bond without fear Now that’s how to introduce a villain. Fleming’s appreciation for birds in much breeze and soared up and away. There antiheroes use those same birds for away and too steep to traverse, and the from bold, golden eyes and went through Readers learn all they need to came the boom of Scaramanga’s gun. target practice, the killings become roads over the mountain ranged from a piercing repertoire of tinny whistles and know about Scaramanga. A feather drifted down from the great that much more barbaric. And the primitive to non-existent. Common Yellowthroat trills, some of which required them to Killing the two playful birds right-hand wing of the big bird. The villains have unwittingly signed their own Fleming came up with the name after in such a vicious fashion not turkey buzzard swerved and soared death warrants. his in-law, Guy Charteris, visited Fleming only makes ‘Pistols’ all the higher. A second shot rang out. The bird After all, James Bond always declares and his wife at Goldeneye in early 1953 celluloid birds more dastardly, but it makes gave a jerk and began to tumble untidily open season on anyone who wantonly and said he was fascinated by the solitaire his later confrontation with down out of the sky. It jerked again as a kills a bird. Small wonder he was named and its eerie flute-like song. Bond inevitable. third bullet hit it before it crashed into the for an ornithologist. BW Although birds are scarcely seen in Scaramanga soon takes aim the Bond movies, Sean Connery did again – at another bird. On a About the author About the book train ride through a mangrove wear a gull disguise on his head as he swam Jim Wright is an author, blogger, and longtime birding The Real James Bond is the true story of identity swamp with Scaramanga and in a harbour in an early scene in columnist for The Record in New Jersey. A prize-winning theft, rare birds, rare books and real-life spies. several gangsters, “[Bond] Goldfinger. And when a 1964 Canadian writer, his books include The Nature of the Meadowlands, Packed with archival photos and interviews with watched a Turkey Buzzard a

Broadcasting Corp. interviewed Ian Jungle of the Maya, and Hawk Mountain. In his spare Bond’s colleagues, this biography examines the life

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Fleming at Goldeneye, Jamaican Grackles thousand feet up, circling. He put j kevin wat

n wat n i kev time, he spies on birds. Follow his adventures on Twitter of the ornithologist who introduced the world to the himself into the mind of the John interrupted and stole the show. @1realjamesbond and read his blog: realjamesbond.net exotic birds of the West Indies.

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