It sat on my desk for a few days, until I got a chance to sketch it (I like to think it makes me feel a little better, if it gives its life for knowledge, but I don't really believe that). It makes you wonder how all those 19th century naturalists could kill all the birds and other animals they loved so much just so that they could draw them or have them in their own personal collections (and yes, I do see the irony of doing the same thing with plants, and insects which I will have to collect for class as well).
Afterward, I placed its body in this hollow stump, as a final resting place. We used to have a little dead birch near our woods trail, with a lot of shelf fungi growing out of it, on one of which I would place dead birds (and snakes) when we found them, but the tree fell down last year. When I went to check last night, it was gone. Something out there made a meal of it, which is what this whole circle-of-life thing is about, right?
It's so pretty, even dead. I never know what to do when I come across dead birds. Photographing them feels weird, but sometimes I still want to.
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