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There are always little tragedies unfolding in the garden and grounds here, and this was one of them. A bird killed by flying into what it took for a peerless, blue sky, but in fact was a reflection of the sky in our bathroom window. I put it in the patinated dish that Peter’s sister Sally made for us as a bird-bath for the garden, and took this photograph.
What species is this?
You must ask someone who is more expert. I get hopelessly confused with these little grey-brown species, so many of which are hard to tell apart.
now it has a halo…
A wonderful photo, possibly a metaphor…
I take that as a big compliment from a man who knows!
(-;
It’s mostly luck when I take a good photograph, Thom. Unlike you!
PS. I also “lost” two baby robins who fledged too early. When I find bodies, I will put them where only ants can get to them. A season later, I look for their bones. Easier to keep in drawers
Aren’t artists weird?
Clive, I’ve had several of my windows prove deadly to my birds, though one survived (for long enough to fly away)…
My solution works.. One needed a bamboo curtain for sun shade, so I hang it from the overhanging soffit for both those reasons. The others I’ve either used glass paint to paint a permanent design that fits the room nicely or just put a quick peelable plastic “sticker” on it. The birds see these and avoid the windows. Whatever it is, it does have to be applied directly to the window. I have stained glass panels (one quite large) hanging in them, but it’s not been enough.
I may steal your photo. I’ve done some “dead bird” paintings in the past, to bring attention to their plight (like being killed in the vanes of a wind farm generator)
Good luck!
Some excellent advice there. Thank you so much. In the six and a half years we’ve been here, there have been a few slightly stunned birds that just needed a bit of rest and recuperation to get over a head-banging, and luckily only two or three deaths… though any are to be regretted. This is the first time the bathroom window has been the culprit, even though many birds live their lives just beyond it in our back orchard. Every day I watch the avian life that teems out there while I wash and shave. It’s a great place for observing the wildlife.
(The ‘ants’ tip is a good one. But how do you ensure that only ants can get to them?)
I stash them under wooden pallets or within our pile of recycled bricks we have for future construction projects.. Something like that. Sometimes, some of the bones are still gone. I found pieces of a dead mole (dried up with “jerky” still attached) and stashed them. All I found a month later were the two femurs. But that’s okay, they’re still bones.
For your lovely old place and your bathroom window, you could putty in a 2-3″ wide piece of strong colored transparent stained glass over the top of the top window, on the outside, making sure it’s weather proof. It’s an idea. I’m not sure I’d suggest it if I were there and could see it IRL.. But it could work
That could work on the bathroom window, which is at the back of the house, though given that there’s been just the one casualty there in nearly seven years, it’s probably going to be limited in its usefulness. The front is more problematic. This is a grade II listed Georgian house, and so such an intervention wouldn’t be appropriate. But your other suggestions could work, and I’ll go take a look to see what might be done.
I’ve occasionally put the corpses of small mammals where I thought they’d be most sheltered, but I’m constantly surprised by the activity in a garden, and the way the soil is shifting all of the time. Things really do disappear. I think a tiny barred-cage would be perfect, in which a small dead creature could be placed so that the insects could pass in and out to do their work, while allowing the skeleton to stay intact. Ha ha! What a conversation to be having just before breakfast! (-;
I’ve been told before that my topic of conversation may not be at an appropriate time
I figure an interesting conversation over an excellent repast is a GOOD thing! Sharing ideas is fun, investigating new avenues, interesting. I have a wild imagination sometimes, true, but I never equate what I’m eating to what I’m discussing, so eating eggses while discussing road kill has never been upsetting (nor medical procedures). I’m weird that way, I guess. Lol.
The stained glass addition was meant only for the bathroom window, thinking it was small… Though I admit I didn’t think fully about the period nature of your house. And though you’ve only had the one death, who knows how many birds that one bird would have fledged? They’re lost now and to a human structure, not a fox. Some species mate for life. I lost a male Downy woodpecker here. It was many years before we had a new family move in. (they reuse their nest holes, here.. I’m not sure if they mate for life, but the female had to re-enter the pool at the very least. And I’m sure the pairs stay together, don’t re-enter every year…)
The cage isn’t a bad idea either. I use other spaces too. One is under several layers of chain link fencing.
Happens here a lot too. I’ve become philosophical about it and sadly have a little collection of deceased avians, nests and dead insects etc . My friends think this is not a cool thing to do but they make great drawing studies until given a decent burial. Great photo, great colours.
An artist must make use of all the opportunities that come along, including using deceased wildlife as models. It’s a tradition. I have a bullfinch in the freezer awaiting a visit to the taxidermist, a casualty of the hard winter before last. There’s also a beautiful taxidermied buzzard that I use as a model, that came to grief on the wires of the electrical transformer that used to stand in the garden until we were able to have it transferred off the property, and the supply to the house buried in ducts.
My friend Robert Macdonald made a beautiful drawing of a dead mouse in a saucer, and I recall to this day the tenderness of line he conjured from the subject, and the fragile sense of a creature not sleeping, but completely absent. It so haunted me that I enquired whether he still had it, because I had the notion I might purchase it. He told me that his wife Annie had loved so much that she’d spirited it away to her flat in London, and that she couldn’t be parted from it.
I’ve spent the last month or so enjoying the regular visits of a bullfinch pair. hoping they might have a nest nearby. When he was in his breeding plumage Mr Bullfinch was magnificent, such a stunning bird. I watched a Polly Morgan demonstration of taxidermy and had to admit it was not a calling I could follow but I’m quite taken with the image of your bullfinch finding a new lease of life when he’s been thawed out!
A sweet story–I was wondering if this one would be headed to the taxidermist. Startling photograph…
I’m so relieved to know other artists do this. The contents of my freezer were a bit of an adjustment for my husband when he first met me!
Poor little soul. Some consolation in the idea of such a quick death just as he or she was swooping joyfully into that endless blue. Bird becomes sky…
The photo has a wonderfully iconic quality.
Bird Becomes Sky
Thank you my friend. You’ve just made the gift of a damned fine title! (-;