Wings

Another sad-but-interesting addition to my frozen menagerie - a Redwing that had died after flying into a window.

Before I put it in the freezer (for later study - not eating), I stretched out its wings and wondered about

the night-time journey on which the same feathers, muscles and bones carried it across the North Sea
where did it make landfall? Scotland? Yorkshire? Suffolk?
where it hatched last year - Sweden or Russia, perhaps?
and saw how it still had fragments of soil stuck to its toes.

I suppose it must have been foraging amongst the leaf litter until a few minutes before it died. It's really quite sad.

photo taken with Canon EOS 30D

Whodunnit?

I'm not sure what happened, but these are the remains of a Stock Dove.

There were several piles of feathers, starting near a bush and then moving out into the open as whatever it was worked its way through its meal. Finally, the legs and pelvis and the wings and sternum (click for slightly gruesome photo) of the dove were left in two separate portions, away from the feathers, and picked clean very neatly.

Anyone care to guess what did it? Bird or mammal? The motive is easier to work out...

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Dead Wryneck Sketch

OK, not a sketch, a photo. But it is a dead Wryneck.

It's a sad story. This was the first Wryneck in Bedfordshire for a few years. It fed on ants on someone's front lawn and charmed them with its confiding behaviour. Then, after a couple of days, it was unfortunate enough to fly into the path of a car, and was killed.

The householders buried the Wryneck in their garden. Then they exhumed it when Darren asked if he could come round to see it on behalf of Beds Bird Club, three days later!

This one is not going in the freezer...

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Operation Salvage Little Auk

Read all about it at Birding at The Lodge...

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995