We are happily continuing our releases of the Extinct Animal Songs with The Dodo song!
This song tells us lots of facts and details about the dodo and why it became extinct. Read the lyrics below and find out how many details you can learn about the dodo! 
* All drawings made by the Daphodil Music singers!
Lyrics:
Verse
Big and round and very slow,
The sky is somewhere he won’t go.
He can’t fly though he has wings,
But he can do some other things.
Chorus
“Oh Mr Dodo where can I find you now?”
“You won’t find me, no,no, I’m no longer around”.
Verse
Very friendly, orange beak
This is the bird of whom we speak.
He eats off the Dodo Tree
And is a friend to you and me.
Chorus
“Oh Mr Dodo where can I find you now?”
“You won’t find me, no,no, I’m no longer around”.
“Where can I find you Dodo?”
“You can find me in this song!”
As the song tells us, the dodo became extinct because it was such a friendly bird and was not at all scared of humans which made it very easy for hunters to catch them. The dodos were also flightless birds, which means they couldn’t fly so it wasn’t easy for them to get away from the hunters even if they wanted to!
Did you know?
You can see what the dodo looked like at the Natural History Museum.
Did you also know:
The dodo bird also appears as one of the characters in Alice In Wonderland.
The illustration is by John Tenniel, and is of Alice In Wonderland’s Dodo in “A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale”. Some people believe that the author of the book Lewis Carrol, whose full name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson based The Dodo character on himself and the reason he chose the dodo to represent him was because of his stammer that would have caused him to accidentally introduce himself as “Do-do-dodgson.”
In the book, the dodo is one of the animals that swim around in Alice’s Pool Of Tears. In order to get dry after the swim, the Dodo suggests that everyone run a Caucus race — where they all run in patterns of any shape, starting and leaving off whenever they like, so that everyone wins. At the end of the race, Alice hands out sweets from her pocket to everyone as prizes. However this leaves no prize for herself. The Dodo inquires what else she has in her pocket. As she has only a thimble, the Dodo requests it from her and then awards it to Alice as her prize. The Caucus Race as depicted by Carroll is a satire on the political caucus system, mocking its lack of clarity and decisiveness*
*from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_(Alice’s_Adventures_in_Wonderland)
Come back next week to hear the third song of the Exinct Animal Songs project. See you soon!
