Ghost pigeon photos
Bill Gurstelle says: "Recently, I've become aware of what I call "ghost pigeons, " the imprint a pigeon makes on a glass window of a building when it unwittingly flies into it. They are spooky and depressing and kind of pretty all at the same time."
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what a beautiful idea!
It's so bizarre that I come across this post today, as this morning I saw one of these 'Ghost Pigeon' imprints on a window at my son's school.
I have perfect imprint of a mourning dove on my office window right now, you can see individual fibers of the wing and tail feathers. In the afternoon the sun lights it up - I'll get a picture next week and put it up on flickr.
As one might expect, there happens to be a Flickr group dedicated to this specific topic: Bird Imprints on Glass
See also Flickr group "Bird Imprints on Glass"
http://www.flickr.com/groups/552462@N20/pool/page3/
There was an awesome (to look at, not to be the creator of) owl imprint here in Sweden recently:
http://www.vk.se/Article.jsp?article=223439
http://www.flickr.com/groups/552462@N20/
Group called "Bird Imprints on Glass." Saw my first one about a year ago, and have been fascinated ever since.
Unicorn chaser please?
I find these horribly depressing.
After once watching a bird fly into a nearby window I then got the "joy" of watching it die, mere feet from me. Seeing the light go out of it's eyes. I was NOT happy, and it took me a few days to get over it.
I really could've used not reading this article, sorry, not that it's not an interesting topic, just very depressing for me.
-abs may be remarkably cold-hearted where human life is concerned but despite all the jesting about eating the last exant member of endangered species (and despite being an omnivore who does approve of hunting and eating what you kill) he finds himself oddly soft when animals die, it's almost always traumatic, and given the inconsistency with his other beliefs he's really not quite sure why that would be . .. . but it is.
Hah, swezoid @ 5 and Tommy Russ @ 6 - Beat you to it.
:^)
Funny, I have one also. Too dark now to take a picture though. My print looks like the pigeon hit the window from an angle. More tail feathers than right wing.
The Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia had a post about just such a bird incident on its blog not too long ago...
http://taubmanmuseum.org/blog/2008/11/everyone-wants-to-get-inside/
people with offices in glass towers should either keep their blinds closed or tape things to the glass.
Whoa, I've never seen one of those (they are indeed ghostly and darkly beautiful): All the birds crashing in my windows only leave a little crackled hole behind, like a tiny bullet-hole.
Either way, it gives me a little pang every time... I'm really cheery the times when the bird shakes its head and flies away.
I was sent to the office for disciplinary measures in the sixth grade (whole other story entirely, hoo-boy) and I sat down next to my fellow hooligan, waiting for Mr-
HOLY GOD A ROBIN.
The bird didn't just leave a ghost imprint. It left blood and spinal fluid.
Shortly after that, I and fellow hooligan got a get-out-of-trouble-free card, while Mr. V tried to reassure us that no, the bird was not dead, in fact it had flown away, see?
I watched one of these "imprints" form on my kitchen window once. The pigeon picked itself up, and flew away just fine. The pigeon even left behind some tiny feathers stuck in as part of the "imprint". The best part came a few days later when I saw a little fat bird, like a chickadee, hovering at my Kitchen window, pecking at the "imprint": "Tappity-tap-tap-tap!" It got all the little feathers off of my window. I did not know that chickadees could hover until then.
This phenomenon is described in the opening lines of the poem Pale Fire, from the Nabokov novel of the same name. The poem is the final creation of one of the characters, the poet John Shade.
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
by the false azure of the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff -- and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
the appeal is the image of a winged ghost continuing to fly on after passing through the interface of life and death.
ah thank you Scrubb, much more lyrical.
I have to wonder if birds have a symbol like "to fall" for this.
When I was about eight, a ruffed grouse obliterated the picture window in the living room. We had it stuffed and mounted. Over the years, we found three or four dead ones lying under the window, which reflected the sun at dawn.
didja eat them?
No. Never thought of it.
here's another image:
http://flickr.com/photos/markgallagher/11291114/
Wanna know what the last thing that goes through a bird's mind when he hits a window?
His ass.
This bird didn't leave half as dense a greasy mark as either of the two collared doves who hit our windows last week, and they were just embarrassed. Also, if that's its beak at the top of the print, i reckon it pulled up at the last minute.
I'm hopeful.
Oh gosh, that reminds me of my bird splat photos. Forgot all about them. The most distinctive feature of this splat is that the bird actually left more than just a body impression:
Bird Meets Glass
Not sure what that bird was eating but it sure left a mess!
Tak, I don't work in a glass tower; far from it, more like a converted tractor showroom from the 1920's, but we still get bird strikes. It's worst right after the windows are washed. We even had tinted windows installed this last round but it didn't help that much. I think they're seeing the reflections, so blinds don't help. :-(
crystal drops on nylon fishline, window stickers, advertising, literally any object you can justify to management as more than "just saving birds".
http://www.songbirdgarden.com/store/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=4136
http://www.logomats4less.com/buhostwide.html
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=vH5RVTS4QxA&feature=related
That CWIS PAC clip is heavy. Brrrrrrrrrrrr!
Also, like the decal idea, there is probably a market for non-reflective/matt glass (or a coating of some sort) for conscientious nature-lovers.
*CIWS
Birds leave marks like that because their covered in dander. Since when they grow new feathers, it comes out covered with this white stuff that flakes off when the feather breaks through the covering.
I'll usually get marks like those on the inside of my windows if I don't give my 'tiels a bath every week or clip their wings after they finish molting. They usually end up flying into the windows if they are spooked by something, which is usually the telephone or the doorbell. Luckily enough they never hit the windows head-first, but instead they hit it chest-first, that and they don't have enough room to fly at full-speed at the windows.
Though they are really pretty, and my Sammy once left a full 'tiel print on my window. I guess I never saw them as darkly because non of my birds have never really hurt themselves when they hit the windows. They look a tad stunned, but it's more like, "what WAS that?" stun.
Wanna know what the last thing that goes through a bird's mind when he hits a window?
Do I hate you for posting that sick joke, or do I hate myself for laughing uproariously at it?
It's a bird,it's a pane, it's superman.
(sorry).
G-d bless dah boid.