It really wasn't Jesse's doing that this beautiful red-bellied woodpecker lay dead on the edge of our English-ivy-covered side yard this afternoon. My first thought was Evil Jesse! but then I noticed the bird was unruffled and calm looking with absolutely no explosion of feathers, the telltale clue that Jesse has been indulging his feral twin. I've never seen such an intricately patterned bird close up and perfectly still, its only motion a slight fluttering of its rump feathers in the breeze. I sat next to it in the sunshine, so warm and buttery, and drew it for so long that I felt like I knew this bird. It was patterned like a Byzantine mosaic, the top and back of its head vermillion, and it had a light tan face. Do birds just drop out of the sky sometimes? I know they sometimes kill themselves by flying into windows, but there was no window nearby and no sign of any kind of violence. Jesse ambled over but wasn't even curious about the bird, just rubbed up against me and sauntered off to help P clean the front flower bed.
i love finding dead birds, not because they're dead, but because i get to examine them. i will try to remember to ask my ornithologist nephew what might have happened.
ReplyDeletei wonder about undamaged dead birds too.
ReplyDeletelooking at your drawings i feel like i'm right there with the bird...
Beautiful, intricate drawing. Such detail in those feathers. We don't get the red-bellied woodpecker here in the Pacific Northwest, but the plated, hairy and downey all come to our suet all year round. Stunning creatures...
ReplyDeleteIt always make me sad to find dead birds, only in the last year or so do I use them for models. I've learned so much about them, sketching them.
ReplyDeleteAbout birds dropping dead from the sky....several years ago I was out under our big pine tree putting seed in the feeder. Behind me I heard a loud-ish, soft thud. Turning to the sound, about 6 feet away on the ground was a crow, feet back, eyes closed, flat out, neat as can be. It was warm and soft. I think it just dropped dead while sitting in the tree watching me. I didn't hear it hit branches as it fell, so I'm guessing it was pretty far down the tree.....Most strange experience indeed.
Thank you for sharing your art.....
Thanks for these comments! It is mysterious, the dead bird question. A friend told me tonight that predators scoop them up very quickly and that's why they aren't lying around. Makes sense with all the turkey vultures around here at least.
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