Monday, May 25, 2009
I saw two dead birds this week. The first one was when I was walking home by another route after missing my bus stop. It was a bird I had never seen before. It was a grey bird with spots on its chest. Its beak was open and its wings were outstretched, twisted in an awkward position. Its eyes were lifeless and glassy. It looked strangely out of place on the ground. It was the first unmarred dead bird I had ever seen (the rest were squashed). I got a reasonably unpleasant shock when I first saw it because I wasn't quite looking at where I was going. But when I got back home I had a strange horrid longing to look upon the bird once again, to examine its intricate features and stillness. And I never got to see that bird again.
The other was squashed. But it was dried up by the sun. It was quite inrecognisable. Judging by its size it was probably a sparrow.
Well. I have quite officially come quite close to the life cycle of birds. I stroked a baby sparrow (I think) for ten minutes by the road and have seen dead birds. Ah. I just hope the baby bird I stroked wasn't the one I saw lying dead.
