Ducks and sparrows are birds.

[…] he says a man might deem there were as many archpirates as there were oars.

These 'batlets', which had of necessity to be made from well-seasoned wood, were evidently prized household items, often intricately carved on the upper surface.

The play will be set in Borduria, the fictional state originally created in Hergé's Tintin that resembles a 1970s eastern European state.