two birds, one imaginary

While sifting through my photos from last year I’ve been discovering ones that I had forgotten about or didn’t have time to upload. Each image takes me back to the moment I clicked on the camera’s button.

I took this image of a jackdaw in April last year. It was sitting on top of hoarding, dramatic against a beautiful sky. I got the one shot, as it flew off immediately afterwards. Jackdaws tend to be the more overlooked of the corvids, with the menacing hooded crows, scruffy rooks, and chattering magpies being the most outgoing in Ireland. Yet, I like the Jackdaw’s sleek attire and observant blue eyes.

Sometimes the natural word presents an alternate version of itself: this is both a rock and a bird’s head.

Perhaps a great bird dinosaur is buried deep beneath the earth, and the rock has morphed slowly into its image, to serve as a headstone for its chthonic tomb.

My mind bubbles with whimsy.