Sitting here in the kitchen composing a long email to the tax lady who is persecuting me, I heard a loud bump from the living room.
It is a sound I know only too well, no, not Jules, but he was there and soon bursting his version of a distress howl.
It was the sound of a bird hitting the window and sure enough there it was, a male blackbird lying on the veranda floor quivering in obvious distress. I squeezed out of the door, excluding Jules, and gently picked it up. I could feel his heart beating and saw the open eye with the beak opening and closing, as if gasping for breath. I knew by the floppy neck that I would not be there long and, after a few more minutes the legs started vibrating rapidly as the eye closed. Seconds later his heart stopped beating and all was still.
By this time Jules had come round to the front after leaving by the open back door. I showed him the now still bird and he briefly touched it with his nose.
Finally, up the path, gated both ends, by the swimming pond I reached over the fence to place him on a large tree stump where many have departed from before. Just one last stroke of the incredibly soft feathers and I left him to nature’s undertakers. He will be gone by the morning.
One very hot summer I saw in the middle of the road what I thought was a dead bird. Driving back, it was still there, but was alive. It was on lying on its back on both occasions I saw it, it hadn’t moved, paralysed and on very hot tarmac under the sun – a female blackbird. Tried to cool it down with the car’s cooling system, and as soon as I got to the garden tap to give it just a drop of water, it died in my hand. Neck broken by a car.
I have a very large lilac tree just outside my front garden under which many creatures are left by me for nature to deal with.
Not a day goes by without me seeing a bird, a toad or a squirrel crushed on the road. It breaks my heart. Another common accident is hedgehogs getting stuck in wire fencing (I’ve freed several!)
My house in S Africa had a large lounge with large windows overlooking a large garden, that was bordered by large trees that were home to a large colony of Cape Weavers (the ones that build spherical nests). Watching the construction of the nests was fascinating, but at the same time one knew that some of the first flights would end in disaster against some pane of glass. And indeed they did, and their little olive green, yellow and red corpses would be duly buried beneath the trees from which the youngsters had set off.
However one time, another species, a fork-tailed drongo(!) met a similar end against one of the patio doors, but left the most delicate print of all its feathers on the glass (oil/dust?). Tried to record it photographically, but couldn’t (analogue - could probably have managed it today). Fortunately I had a large variety of art materials in my studio, decided charcoal fixative might well to preserve it. This did the job very well until my very industrious maid took it upon herself to clean the ‘dirty’ window…
We have a large expanse of glass on our conservatory. And another 7 normal windows. We bought a couple of packs of stick-on (the inside) raptor images.
No ‘hits’ since then…
This post reminded me of the time a bird crashed into the window of our Florida home and our cat, Finn, ran up and was instinctively ready to pounce on the dying bird. I took it away so it could die in peace.
Finn is lying on my legs right now. Unfortunately for me, my daughter will pick him up tomorrow and unite him with his brother from another mother, Vanny, and they will all be in Paris. I will have custody of one cat, Lyuba. She’s a sweetheart, but only when she wants to be. I hope I can see them often, but who knows.
I considered the stick on hawks years ago, but, the trouble is the outer side of the terrasse is a long bean on which I put birdseed and don’t want to deter them from that.
I have avoided many collisions by leaving the windows relatively unclean and even more so with the opposite ones, otherwise the birds can see right through the house.
There has been an unfortunate result of my answering this thread today. It prompted me to go into the garden to check on the bird, it is still there, but on the way back I slipped and had another fall. Over to the Accident in the home thread.
Oh David, oh no! How slip proof are your shoes? Maybe look at some with really rugged soles? At the moment, with all the rain, parts of our garden are sodden, so we are taking great care.
An alternative (tongue in cheek) is find a stunt man or woman and get them to teach you how to fall gracefully causing minimal damage. I think the type of shoe is probably the more sensible option. NB: are you being careful to pick up your feet well? As we age it’s all to easy to shuffle.
I’ve had 2 dreams recently, while dozing upright in my computer chair, of suddenly slipping and sliding feet first down the stairs, on my back, resulting in me waking myself up with both legs jolting forward with great force!
The worry of falling occupies my mind sufficiently so to be cautious at all times - fingers crossed with knobs on!
I was still wearing my walking boots, which are very good, in readiness for our 2nd outing at around 5pm. The thing is I walk down that slope, it is in fact two rough surfaced slabs with normally excellent grip which I scrape my soles on each time we return but, after walking I poke my single stick half way down to prevent excatly this situation from occurring. But this time it was just a short nip out and back so had no stick with me.
Though I say it myself I rather think my descent was rather stylish as my body described a graceful arc, swinging as it did around the fulcrum of the fiercely held spiky bush.
I do though, seriously consider if I should venture out in future without that stick though, however so brief.
but you did the best you could 
