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Things That Go Bump In The Night - A Pigeon Auto-Ornitho-Vitrograph
About The Video

On 15 July 2008, something went bump in the night. I slept right through it, but my wife informed me she heard a bird hit the living room window. On examination, it was not only possible to see where the bird (apparently a wood pigeon) had struck, it was possible to see a detailed image of the bird itself.

Auto-ornitho-vitrograph

It's a picture of a bird, on glass, created by the bird itself - an auto-ornitho-vitrograph.

A lot of the fine detail in this image just doesn't photograph well - due to the confounding nature of the backdrop, the lighting conditions, the difficulty of focusing a camera on the glass of the window and the subtlety of the image itself. When viewed in person, it's really quite striking - it's easy to see the outline of wings, beak, feet, even individual feathers on the breast.




Please note: After the video finishes playing, the player may display links to additional videos - these are not affiliated to Atomic Shrimp and the selection is something over which I have no control.

As mentioned above right, it's just a shame that this phenomenon is so very difficult to capture photographically. Being able to see it in the video - moving relative to the backdrop - does make it a little easier to pick out some of the details, but even so, the camera doesn't do it justice. So I made a sketch (which also doesn't do it justice) of what it looks like when examined close up in person:

sketch of pigeon imprint on the window

On the actual window glass, you can almost make out the expression of confused panic.

The bird

It's clear that the bird must have impacted the window quite forcefully - since head, wings, chest and feet all came into firm contact with the glass - not to mention that it made a noise loud enough to disturb someone on the floor above.

I fully expected to find the animal dead in the front garden, but there was no sign of it. I suppose it may have retreated, stunned, to die somewhere else, or a fox or cat may have taken it, or perhaps it was lucky and just spent the rest of the day nursing a bad headache and a lot of bruises.