A Small Tragedy

As promised, I took a few pictures of the sky after the storm as reference photos for painting. There were so many colors it would be difficult to describe them all.

I had a small tragedy here last week. In the morning I was up making coffee, enjoying the sound of birds and seeing some sunshine for a change, when I heard a sound like a door hinge popping. I checked the French doors, nothing was amiss, the mastiff Kylie had not shoved it open as she sometimes does. I looked around the front studio and all seemed fine. I forgot about it for a while.

When I went out to do some weeding under the windows later, I found a flicker, dead, below the window. It must have flown in directly -- there was a split down its beak for a few inches as if it had driven itself into the glass very hard.

I brought it inside and took some reference photos of it as well. I never knew how brilliant the yellow was on the underside of its wings. My windows are not very reflective, I don't know what compelled it to fly into them, they usually have a layer of dust on them from the road, but perhaps the rain and hail washed them clean enough to be confusing to a bird. Later in the summer that window is covered by hops, but too late to help this poor fellow.