When O’Reilly’s sent us a book cover design for approval, it was a no brainer. Three authors hence three chickens. Anatole immediately said that he recognized Victor and myself, but was not sure if the third birdy looked like him.  No biggies.

We’ve approved the cover, but somewhere in the back of my mind I still had unanswered questions:

Who are these animals? Pheasants?

After watching the behavior of my co-authors in various business situations (meetings with perspective clients, training gigs, conference talks) I found that they do look like pheasants once in a while. But what about me? Do I also look like a chicken at times?

Finally, O’Reilly published the description of our book Enterprise Development with Flex , which had a section titled with a new for me word “Colophon”.

Below, I’ve included the quotes from that colophon (production notes) in italic with my comments in regular font.

The animals on the cover of Enterprise Development with Flex are red-crested wood-quails (Rollulus roulroul), more commonly known today as crested wood partridges or Roul-roul partridges.

Mama, I found my roots! I’m not a pheasant – I’m a red-crested wood quail! And I’m not alone – Anatole and Victor are also quails living in the woods!

The birds live in small flocks in the lowland rainforests of Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo. They forage on the ground for fruit, seeds, and insects, and often follow wild pigs through the forest to feed on any leftovers.

I guess, O’Reilly researchers didn’t know that some of the red-crested wood-quails can live in Eastern Europe – I’m originally from Ukraine. As to the food, I tend to agree with everything but insects, which us, Ukrainian species don’t eat. Yes, we follow pigs - people from Ukraine are well known for eating pork’s fat (a.k.a. salo).  When Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union, there was deficit of everything. The Communist Party nomenclature had special closed supermarkets with good products, and my PS94 in Kiev was located nearby the food store,  which periodically had some products that those big shots didn’t want. We used to call this supermarket “Leftovers”.

If disturbed, these plump birds can fly for short distances, but, as is common in many quail species, they tend to run instead.

By 1992, I was not only disturbed, but sick and tired of all this deficit and inability to grow as a professional. I’ve flown not for a short but for a very long distance and settled down in the USA.

Male and female red-crested wood-quails have vastly different appearances.

True. My wife doesn’t look like me.

Males sport a white spot at the base of the bristling red-crested head for which the bird is named, as well as iridescent blue-green plumage and a dark blue underbelly.

My hair is getting grey, and at the base of my head too. I’ll consider making my bristling head red-crested to be recognizable more easily. Please let me not disclose the color of my underbelly tattoo.

This bird's call is a plaintive, whistled si-ul, most often heard at dawn.

The work on this book was a moonlight job for us, and no wonder people could hear us whistle and curse in the wee hours.

In 2004, the red-crested wood-quail was listed as a near threatened species due to heavy logging activity in Southeast Asia.

See guys, we may extinct if you won’t treat us nicely by purchasing our book in bulk quantities. By the way, chapter 4 will show you how to facilitate the heavy Flex/Java logging activity with an open source product Log4Fx.

Thank you, O’Reilly for publishing the book and helping in finding my identity! I'm coming out of the closet! I'm a red-crested wood-quail!

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