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I wonder how many of the people who go out making lists of spring birds
know that bird listing goes back to ancient times. It's a modern sport,
but earlier bird watching was serious, and a competitive listing of
birds played a part in as important an event as the selection of the
site of the city of Rome.
The story, as Plutarch tells it, is that Romulus wanted the city on
what became known as Roma Quadrata; Remus wanted it on the Aventine
Mount. As was the custom in those days, they concluded at last to
decide by a divination from a flight of birds. The twins placed
themselves apart at some distance and watched. Remus, they say, saw
six vultures, a truly notable flight; Romulus saw twelve and from this
rare and unusual occurrence Romulus' choice of the site for the city
was accepted.
VULTURES HIGHLY REGARDED Partly from this the vulture became chiefly
regarded by the Romans in their divinations from birds. But even before
this the vulture was highly regarded. Hercules, it was said, was always
very joyful when a vulture appeared to him upon any occasion. He
considered it the least harmful of creatures; not pernicious to corn,
fruit tree, or cattle, it never killed or hurt any living thing. It
was also thought not to eat other birds, a weighty point in its favor,
as Plutarch quotes from Aeschylus, "What bird is clean that preys on
fellow bird?" And apparently its deciding claim to esteem was its
rarity and infrequency, which gave rise to the opinion in some that it
came from another world, an opinion foisted by the soothsayers of the
day.
Earlier yet, birds played a part in Rome's history. Plutarch warns
that some give you mere fables of the origin of Rome, but it is
widely current that Remus and Romulus, fathered by Mars, the God of
War, were exposed in a remote place to perish. This would have taken
place, but for a she-wolf that nursed them, and birds of various sorts
that brought little morsels of food which they put into their mouths.
Some, however, hold the belief that not birds of various sorts but a
woodpecker was the bird that constantly fed and watched the twins, and
even in Plutarch's time the Romans still worshiped and honored the
woodpecker for this service to the founder of the city.