Windowstrike! Dead Goldfinch…
Wed 15th February 2012
We had a casualty yesterday, a beautiful goldfinch. I didn’t hear the impact, but there were telltale feather fragments stuck to the glass above – a fatal windowstrike.
The bird itself was unmarked and exquisite, with velvety red face mask and yellow and black plumes, but unmistakeably dead. The usual advice is to double bag a dead bird and put it in the household refuse, but an alternative is to bury it in the garden, which seemed more fitting than the wheelie bin for this lovely specimen. Even so I couldn’t bring myself to tip earth directly onto its finery, so it moulders in a shroud of moss, heather and dandelion leaves…
Given the high mortality rates of garden birds why don’t we come across more little corpses?. In answer to ‘where do birds go to die?‘ it seems that being eaten by the likes of sparrowhawks, cats and foxes accounts for most deaths, and that any remains not scavenged will quickly decompose, disappearing back to the bottom of the food chain, and sparing us the sorry sight.